Silver Path (Part 2)
by Eba-chan150
Summary: Silver and Crack arrived in scorched land and were immediately comforted by strange cyber-hedgehog that captured them before their search for the second Bits could even begin. But beating the enemy is just the first step as this will be Silver's biggest adventure yet... and the most dangerous too. (Check Silver path – part 1 – first!)
1. Death future

_**! Hello, I have moved to WATTPAD, if you like what have you found here, you may like the NEWEST stories there. My username there is WITTO150. This story will be there too and I plan to make it even better.  
**_

* * *

The second part is here! Don't forget to check the first part in the **Crossover category (Sonic the hedgehog + Megaman X)** or you will be confused by what the heck is happening. So if you haven't read it yet, click on my nickname and search my profile for **Silver path (part 1).** For those who read it... stop reading this nonsense and dive in the next adventure like right now!

* * *

Their captor had them in an iron grip. Silver could barely focus on his powers while Crack was making one error noise after another. The sun disappeared behind the rock column, giving Silver better look on it.

It… or more like he did look like a hedgehog, he had only three big quills on a head with a little curvature. His skin gave him a feeling he is partially robotized or use it for enchanting his psychic powers. His chest fur was spiky and a bit messy.

His gloves had big bracelets with a big dark blue glowing stone. His boots looked rather heavy and big for his thin legs but seemed sturdy too as their tips had steel plate.

He raised his hand and closed his palm a bit. Silver yelled as he was crushed. He clenched his teeth. This was ridiculous. Why was he attacking them? Why is this world so devastated? And the only one having all these answers is the jerk that's trying to kill them.

Silver had enough. His gloves glowed and his aura pushed the dark blue one back. The attacker was surprised and even more when Silver ripped his psychic attack apart. He immediately freed Crack too.

"-Krtzz- System… reboot…"

"Why did you attacked us?!" Silver got ready for action. Their opponent was stunned only for a while, as he created a dark blue whirling ball and throw it at them. Silver avoided the attack and took Crack with him, as he was unable to move yet.

The ball formed by psychic energy completely destroyed the cliff without leaving a trace. Silver felt pressure as the other psychic started to chase them. Silver headed to a field full of stone columns and structures like big loops, funny looking stones, and other shapes. Our hero zigzagged his way trying to lose their pursuer.

"Let me down," said Crack. Silver quickly landed on an overhang.

"Do you feel better?"

"Yeah, enough to kick his butt!" The robot turned his right hand into the buster.

"It's not that I don't agree…" His speech was interrupted by collapsing rocks. The pursuer was destroying everything around him to chase them out. His psychic spheres were making pretty good job… too good for our duo.

"Hey, weird head, I'm here!" Silver jump from behind a bigger rock cliff. "Catch me if you can!" He started to fly away. The other hedgehog was just a few meters behind. For a while he just chased him and then he started to throwing a new attack. His hand now shot an energy in a form of an arrow.

It cut through stones like they were a butter. Silver silently yelled when it just missed him and seeing the result made him even more nervous. He started to doubt about his plan. Futuristic hedgehog almost caught his leg, but Silver was quicker. He grabbed him with his power and tossed him toward a rock wall.

Unfortunately, the attacker landed on his feet and jumped toward him. He created from his energy a sword. Silver avoided the attack but had to pay a few hairs from his chest. His heart was beating like crazy. He pressed against the stone wall. The attacker was getting furious. He turned in the air and prepared a bigger ball.

"Gotcha!" shouted now functional Crack and hit him to the back with a small plasma ball. The hedgehog had a hard landing. Robot jumped at him and pointed his cannon at his head. "No psycho mambo and no harm will come to yar face!"

Cybernetic mobian glared back at him. Crack's eyes noised here and there showing he wasn't fully functional.

"Don't hurt him!"

"Did I just miss 'Thank ya for saving my ugly tail.' part?" mumbled Crack sarcastically.

"Geez, thanks all right, but you don't need to kill him."

"Don't need?!" Crack shouted and adverted his eyes from the captive. "That guy almost shorted out my CPU!"

"It must be some kind of mis—Watch out!" Silver pulled Crack to himself just before psycho-ball was fired, hitting a stone wall behind them and crushing it. The duo flew back as the stones were raining down.

Cybernetic hedgehog stood up, jerked and in a pain fell down holding his chest. Silver rushed to him. The biggest stone piece yet tore down, threatening to crush them both.

"That idiot!" Crash stepped on it and flew after him.

"I've got you!" Silver took him. The big shadow made him look above. "Oh, crud!" He flew, but too slow.

"Anybody called a taxi?" Crack caught them and dragged them to safety. The huge stone crushed the land beneath it.

"Thanks, Crack, you saved us."

He put them on the land. "Ya are the dumbest psychic I have ever seen!" Crack yelled, but then a two bulbs appeared on his LCD. "Ya are actually the first one I have ever seen."

The other psychic woke up, stood up and made few quick steps to make a distance.

"It seems there was some kind of misunderstanding," Silver offered him a hand. The other hedgehog was heavily breathing. "We don't want to fight you, we onl—" The flames burst out of a small hole before Silver. "Whoah!" He fell on his butt. He quickly put out a fire on his chest.

"Bwahaha!" Crack was laughing so hard he stumbled over and fell on his butt too. Right to a hole. "Don't tell me…" The flames burst. "Hot! Hot! Hoooot!" He was hopping around and holding his butt, while Silver was rolling, kicking and laughing on the ground.

"Can it! Yar hairs will regrow, but I'll need a mechanic!" He looked at his butt. "My poor tail."

Silver stood up and rubbed tears from his eyes. The third one was carefully watching him and he took a step closer to him. Silver awkwardly smiled. He was staring at him too much making him nervous. Hedgehog raised his hand and slowly got closer to Silver.

He touched his forehead. He did it for a couple of seconds before he finally talked: "Who are you?"

Silver smiled. "I'm Silver the hedgehog and this is my companion Crack. He has a sarcastic big mouth but he isn't that bad."

"Ya're just envious of my perfect profile."

"I'm Zilver. What do you want here?"

"We are only looking for our lost friend. Maybe you have seen it. It is small hedgehog with an attached ball on its head. It can be a big prankster too."

"I may have seen it."

"That's fantastic!"

"Ehm…" interrupted him Crack.

"What's up?"

"What about filling me in?" He pointed at himself.

"What do you mean? We just talked."

"But I didn't hear him utter a single word!"

Silver was silent for a while. "But that means—!"

]Yes, I'm talking with a telepathy.[

"No wonder."

]But I can communicate with the other one too. We just need to open a communication channel since he is a machine.[

"Really? That would save us some trouble." Silver conveyed the message to Crack. He wasn't happy about that, but he did it anyway.

]Follow me.[ He flew and lead them through bare lands. The more Silver saw the more it was depressing. The sky was constantly covered by ashes, the flames were bursting out of countless holes and the air was dry only purple crystals added a new color to this death world.

"What happened here?" He had to ask.

]There we are.[

Before them appeared a floating island.

"The Angel Island?!"

"Ya mean that island with the big-butt jewel?" added Crack.

"Something like that," his comments were certainly unique.

]How do you know it?[ They landed.

"I know it will sound crazy, but we two are from different time and space." Zilver didn't react. "There are these Genesis portals that disturb the space-and-time matrix that connects different dimensions and our friend, unfortunately, went through one and ended up here."

]That's… interesting.[

"So you believe us?"

]I guess so. You look too gullible to make a good lie anyway.[

"That's our Silvie," noted happily Crack, making fun of him.

Silver wasn't happy about that, but if it helped them to make friend with this guy, so be it.

]Come with me.[ Zilver guided them to the main shrine. Even this place was totally devastated. Like the flames reached even this place. The vegetation was dead, not even bug to see. The main building was leveled, but the underground part looked solid. Some stones and broken columns were here and there, but otherwise, the place was fine.

"What happened here?" His question was ignored.

]I believe this is it.[ The room wasn't big, but it was so-so decorated with old furniture and some machines. The virtual hedgehog flew to them, happy to see a familiar face. ]It ended up in my home. It was indeed lucky. Any other place would lead to his demise.[

Silver jerked. He was really lucky.

]Since you have him, you can go. Your mission is fulfilled.[ He slightly bowed and went further to the ruins.

Silver didn't like it. Not at all.

"So, let's go. We have got the last coordination too," said Crack when the portal to laboratory closed.

"No."

"Come again?"

"I said no. This world needs help."

"Are ya crazy or stupid?" Crack spread his arms. "Look around ya! This world is finished. Kaput!"

"How can you know it?!"

"'Cause I have made a scan of my surrounding, that's why!" He called a small hologram showing a land they flew over. "Just look. The planet is dead. There is no water, vegetation, no life. It's too late for it." He closed it.

"If it's too late know," hedgehog clenched his fists, "then we just have to return in the time!"

Crack made a skeptical face. "Hah?"

"Just think. If we change the history, we will change this place too."

"And did it occurred to ya, that would mean having an information what caused this?"

"We can just ask him."

"Yeah, right. He just ignored ya two times, what makes ya believe it won't be for the third time too?"

"That's because he has no hope. I'll show him a path to the better future… or the past… whatever works."

"And one more thing…" Crack pointed at him, but then he stopped, "… or not, just go to him. If my scan is right, ya will find something interesting there." He indicated him to go. So Silver went.

Crack looked at the machines. "Great. My memory is still wonky from the shock and I'm about to give a kick to microchips. I better get paid for this." He sat on a chair and accessed the computer. "Let's see…"

Silver noticed the corridor was going deeper. He already knew the Angel Island was full of ruins, but this was like… destroyed ruins. The walls were full of cracks and dust was falling here and there on his head. He wondered what happened to Knuckles, Sonic and other heroes he used to know.

"Zilver…?" he silently approached a door leading to the last room. It was lighted and in the middle of the hexagonal room was the Master Emerald. Silver gasped as it was cracked, its light was dim and the color was almost gone. 'Is it dying?' He never heard about it. 'That's!' he gasped.

Zilver was connected with few cables to jewel's pedestal apparently recharging and leaning against big crystal structure. Silver come closer. It looked like something was inside of it. He squinted, but he couldn't recognize it.

"Pss, Silvie, c'mon for a sec." Cracked silently called him. "Wanna hear about this world?" he continued when they returned to the previous room.

"Of course."

"Then sit down and listen." Silver raised his left eyebrow, but he did it nevertheless. "This world was pretty fine till some 200 years ago. Some big-butt monster from underground started to wreak havoc. The flames were bursting from the whole planet and no place was safe. Most of the population died during few first months.

No organization was able to subdue that phenomenon. The survivors then settled here on Angel Island and many generations they tried to kill the monster, but to no avail. It completely burned the land."

Silver clenched his fists.

"According to the data it's called Iblis and what more, it isn't alone. There is some dark hedgehog by his side. He isn't breathing flames or big-butt sized, but he has one nasty ability." Crack looked toward the last room. "Did ya notice the crystal back there?"

"Yeah, I did." He stood up. "I think something is inside."

"Yup, the remains."

Silver shivered. "What?"

"Yup, that dark bastard can capture others inside of crystals and after some time, they will turn to crystal itself."

Silver fell on his butt. "So all the purple crystals were…?"

"Oh yeah and that's why I told ya to sit down."

"Why would anybody do that?"

"It seems their existence is nothing more than total destruction."

]Why you are still here?[ Zilver must have finished his charging.

"We will help you!" Silver jumped to his feet. "We will help you to change the world! Let's go to the past!"

]What…? But that's…[

"Totally possible!" Silver confidently smiled. "Genesis portal can take us anywhere!"

"If ya know the right coordination, that's it," added Crack.

]It's pointle—[

"It's not!" Silver shouted.

Crack put his hand on Silver's shoulder. "If ya allow me." Silver smirked, he had a feeling this will be good. "So, Zilvie, let's make our facts straight, shall we?" Zilver frowned. "Ya are living in a death world, the whole population was crystallized, the Master Emerald can run out of energy any given day and ya still refuse to take a chance to change it?"

]I can't…[

"No, you can't."

Silver raised his eyebrow. That's not the right way to persuade someone.

"Not alone, but with us, it's possible." Zilver didn't answer. "So ya would rather die here alone, then die while trying?"

'Crack is taking it too far.' Silver noticed Zilver clenching his fists. Crack hit the spot! Zilver was angrily staring at him and gritting his teeth too. "Good, I take it as yes!" He turned to Silver. "Get on with it, Silvie!"

"It's Silver, jerk-bot!" But he was grinning, he felt electricity running through his body. He stopped. "To which time we should actually go?"

"Ya just had to kill the mood, don't ya?"

]I know. My master often told me the stories about the past.[

"Then put your minds together and make our path already!"

Zilver put his hand on Silver's one. They closed eyes and focused. Zilver was thinking on the date his master mentioned as a beginning of the end while Silver was making the portal.

"Cool job, ya two!" The portal was before them.

Silver took a deep breath and jumped through it. Zilver was watching in a daze. The path to change everything was before him. He never thought about it.

"Psychos first." Crack gallantly showed him the way.

Zilver slowly went through it, closing his eyes. His heart was beating fast. 'I'll avenge you, master.' Once he stepped on the other side, he felt cold. The difference was like coming from the Hell to North pole. His whole body shivered.

To be continued…

* * *

The first chapter of a new and long arc is here! What do you think? Please, let me know.


	2. Different similarities

"T-Take this," Silver throw over his bent back a cape with the hood he found nearby. It was old and smelly, but it warmed him up a bit.

"Softies," commented it Crack, perfectly fine as he was the robot.

Silver closed the portal. "So, are we on the right address?"

Around them were up to five-storey tall buildings, flashing street's light, trash everywhere and the atmosphere was overly gloomy.

"Let me check it." Even in this area, there was a wireless signal Crack hacked (it was easy) and downloaded information. "Ok, guess we are in the time for the catastrophe." Silver again raised an eyebrow, his way how to calmed them down was if nothing else questionable. "We are in the Alvain city, the downtown part. Which means there is one thug after another, so watch yar wallets." Neither of them had it.

"I'm glad we are here, but let's look for someone who can help us too. I have one or two tips. Let's start with Shadow."

]Shadow? And why do we need him?[

"He is pretty strong… at least in my world and since we are on Mobius I'm sure he lives here too."

Crack felt a strange pain in his head and he made few steps away from them. 'What's this? Some kind of an error?' He felt it already for few times. Did he catch some virus? After the first time, he completely checked his system. There was nothing.

"Crack?"

"Huh?"

"What's up? Did you run out of puns?" silver hedgehog made a fun of him.

"Me? Where would be fun in that? I just tried to get a better signal," he lied, "but no luck so far. Let's ask about him in the pubs. That's the best information source ya can found."

They didn't search too long as one was just behind a corner. The exterior reflected interior as it was full of smoke, smell of alcohol and dirty. Silver coughed and all the eyes looked their way. Newcomers were never welcomed. They went to the bar counter.

"Excuse me, I would—"

"I don' hav' milk. Run back to yar mommies, brats," replied walrus bartender rudely without looking at them. The customers laughed.

"Without honey?" added Crack looking shocked, but his eyes were full of sarcasm, "What kinda bar is this?"

Silver giggled. Walrus put noisily the glass he was cleaning to the bar counter. "Tryin' to b' smartass?"

"Maybe," answered Crack without a fear.

A bear appeared behind them and picked up Silver by back quills. "Brats like ya are 'pposed to be in bed! Get lost!"

"Talk about bad breath. Ever heard of oral hygiene?" Silver caught his nose.

Bear growled.

"Hey, uncle, let me warm ya," Crack poked him. "He is a big softie, but he can be a tough cookie too."

Silver confidently smiled.

"O'rlly?" Bear got ready to hit him with a fist, but Zilver grabbed his belly fur. Before the bear could say something, he single-handed lifted him forcing him to let go of Silver.

]You will tell us where is Shadow or meet your maker![ He shouted to the minds of all around him.

"Calm down!" Silver put a hand on his shoulder. "Huh?" The atmosphere around them changed. It was tense.

"And here I was thinking the 'please' is a magic word," commented it Crack. "And I like yar style, Zilvie."

"Don't encourage him!"

"Take thi'." Walrus put in front of them a small paper. "You will find him ther'." He returned to cleaning glasses.

Silver took it and Zilver tossed the shocked bear on the ground. "Thanks." They left. Once outside, Silver asked Zilver to keep his short temper in check to not cause more harm than help. He nodded.

The address took them to a big nightclub full of a pink neon. It was called "Bat's rouge". They went inside. The smell of smoke was there but not like in the previous bar. Behind the door was a big bull bodyguard.

"Do you have an invitation?" he asked.

"Do you mean this?" Silver gave him the small name card they got from the bartender. There was a name of the club and two fists. Bull needed only one glance to check it, but he looked at them a while longer.

"Follow me."

"You see, fists don't solve everything," said Silver to Zilver.

Before they turned a corner, Silver noticed a singing bat lady on the podium. They eyes met for a while and Silver blushed.

The guard guided them to an elevator, but to Silver's surprise it went underground. Was it a trap? If is, he will show them how tough cookie he is. When the elevator stopped, he led them to a small room.

"Once you hear the gong, please, proceed through the second door." With this, the bull left them.

"A gong? OK, let's wait then," Silver shrug shoulders.

The room had only two benches and a lot of cracked plaster. Silver examined it to kill some time. After about a half hour later they heard a gong. So they exited the room through the second door. It led to another corridor leading to a light and lot of noise.

"What the—?" Silver covered his eyes. "An arena?!" There was like thousands of people gathered, humans and Mobians alike.

Crack whistled. "Nice." He pushed the two. "Let's go and give them a good fight."

"What fight?"

"While ya were staring at the walls, I checked their internet and I have found something about this universe Shadow." They stopped before four steps to the battle stage. "He is the underground boss and he literally owns whole Down Town in the Alvain City. This arena is naturally his doing and it seems to ask for Shadow means asking for a fight. That's what these two fists were for."

"But we only wanted to ask him a question," objected Silver. "And you are telling that now?"

"It was too late to back down anyway. And take it this way, we can check his strength and show him ours, that means he may listen to us and trust us."

"You do have a point."

"When I don't?"

The noise from the audience was suddenly unbearable. The champion came. He had an amazing cape on his shoulders and once he got to the arena, he threw it far away. He wore a leather jacket with two small pockets and red linings.

"Show off."

"Well, well," Shadow voice echoed and the people went silent practically immediately. "You look a lot more pathetic than I was told."

"Just wait and yar face will feel otherwise," said Crack full of confident.

Shadow didn't look impressed. He must have heard it a lot, giving his occupation. "So will you come all or you prefer to go down one by one. I don't care how you decide. If you decently entertain me I maybe spare you a few broken bones," he cracked his joints on arms, getting ready for some action.

"Kill them!"

"Start already!"

"Boo! Boo!"

The audience started to shout. Their voices sounded like the roaring of many beasts.

"Guess I'll take the—What?" Crack was stopped by Zilver that came to the podium.

"Oh, so someone here has guts after all." Shadow was more like mocking him as he saw him as the weakest. Or maybe the other silver hedgehog… Whatever, he will take all three down anyway. "So you prefer to go down one by one, huh? Fine by me." Shadow was showing no respect.

"Is he always like that in our universe?" whispered Crack to Silver.

"Actually… yeah, he can be a bit cocky, but I guess in this zone he is even more," he replied back.

"You know what." Shadow pulled his gloves. It looked like a habit before a fight. "I'll give you first hit." He smirked. "It's more than three months since I had a decent fight, so I don't want it to end too quickly." The gong rang and the battle started. "Entertain me."

Zilver clenched his fist and run toward his opponent to hit him in the face.

'What an amateur,' thought Shadow, 'he is just another street punk. I should make some elimination tournament to get decent opponents.'

It looked the punch will do some damage, but then Zilver stopped a step before him and flicked him to the nose. Shadow couldn't hide his surprise. The audience was completely shocked too. Zilver turned his back to him and returned to his starting point. When he turned back his expression was cold.

Shadow gritted his teeth. No one will be making a fool out of him. No one! "I tried to be nice since you look so weak," he took a fighting stance. "But if you have a death wish… So be it!" He attacked with his fist but at the last moment, he switched to a round kick.

To everyone's surprise the challenger blocked it and what's more, his thin arm didn't break like a twig. Everyone was surprised including Shadow. Black hedgehog jumped back and made side-step, avoiding a punch. When Zilver's left leg touched the ground he turned and aimed with his other leg to Shadow's head.

He ducked and tripped Zilver's leg. Zilver fell on his back quills, but before Shadow could punch his stomach, he curled to safety.

"Cool kid! Way to go!" Crack supported him.

"Don't overdo it!" while Silver was worried about his health.

Shadow stood up, carefully looking at him. Something was odd about him. His moves… he wasn't an ordinary punk. "Nice moves," he praised him. "You got some reflexes too." Zilver wasn't reacting. "Silent treatment, huh? So be it." Shadow pulled his gloves again. "Get ready for round two!" He rushed toward him at a faster speed than before.

He grabbed him by the arm, but before Shadow could toss him, Zilver grabbed him for chest fur, curled up, dragging him down. Once Zilver's back quills touched the ground, he kicked Shadow in the stomach with both of his legs, tossing him behind himself. This way Zilver needed only a tenth of required power to do so as he used Shadow's momentum.

But Shadow wasn't down to the count. He quickly got up and jumped toward him. Zilver stood up as well, but couldn't avoid his elbow, that ended up in his stomach. Zilver jerked but didn't scream. He grabbed Shadow's front quills and tried to burrow his knee in black hedgehog's stomach.

Unfortunately, for him, this time, Shadow not just caught his attack, but punched him to the ground. Cybernetic hedgehog slammed his head to the ground and wasn't moving.

'Damn, I didn't want to hit him that hard.' The audience was roaring. 'Oh well, if his thin bones are tough his skull must be too.' He turned away. "Not bad fight, kid, return after ten years and then we can have a rematch." He looked at the other two. Silver was horrified while Crack smiled.

"Behind you!" shouted the robot.

Shadow didn't turn, he didn't need to, he felt it. He felt his opponent getting up. He was panting, but his breathing soon returned to normal. Shadow turned his head. Zilver looked pretty fine. Black hedgehog smirked. "Guess I'll have to go a little harder on you."

They rushed toward each other exchanging one punch and kick after another. The audience now even supported Zilver, shouting his name.

"Kick him in the nuts!" shouted Crack absorbed in the fight.

"Are you nuts?"

"I'm a robot, not a nut!"

Silver's face was now a book example of a depression. That was the stupidest joke he ever heard. 'I hope Zilver will be okay.' He was seriously worrying about his heath. Who knows how long he can last?

Shadow's kick sent him on the ground. Now it was him panting. 'I must be out of a form. That kid is giving me a hard time and why do I get so strange feeling from him?' He always thought there is only one challenger that can be his even. Zilver slowly stood up. 'Like seriously?' Shadow clenched his fists. 'That's it! Next attacked will finish him!'

]You…[ Zilver's voice was shaky.

"What? So you do talk." Shadow smirked. "Done with the silent fighter act?"

]You…![ Zilver's eyes were full of anger. ]You faker![ Dark blue psychic aura engulfed him, forming before him a big ball.

"What…?!" Shadow's body was coated by green flames. "No one…" The flames concentrated to his right fist. "… calls me faker and lives with it!"

They shot their attacks.

"Noo!" shouted Silver as chaos and psychic energy clashed and tried to push each other. The mass was getting bigger and out of control.

"It's over ]krtzz[ nine thousand!" shouted Crack and electric sparks were dancing on his body.

Silver rushed towards it. His light blue aura raised from him, covering the energy bomb. "It's…" Psychic tried to neutralize it, but it was maybe too late. He didn't give up. Lives of many people were at the stake.

He pushed more, covering the whole thing. Zilver and Shadow were looking at him. Silver was clenching his teeth, moving his hands, manipulating his psychic energy to neutralize it. The ball had a different plan… like to explode in the next five seconds!

Silver gave it all, pushing his abilities to its limits. His eyes shined and the air was filled with a smell of ozone and sharp sounds. No one said anything as they were hypnotized by his performance. The ball finally started to shrink. He didn't stop pushing until it was anymore.

His eyes returned to normal and he gasped. He turned to Shadow, that jerked. "Are you a total idiot?!" He rushed to him burrowing point finger to his chest fur. "You could kill everyone here!"

"But…"

"No buts! So he called you a faker? Big deal! Take it as an adult! I thought you are better than this!" Then he switched his attention to Zilver. He came to him like the goddess of vengeance. "And what I told you about keeping your powers in check? You can't throw it wherever you feel like it!"

Silver furiously turned and walked toward Crack. The robot was shaking his head and peeked at him. "Do ya remember when I said ya are a softie, but tough too?"

"Yeah, so what?" He stepped on the stairs.

"It was supposed to be a joke."

Silver tumbled and the robot caught him. "Did you have to say it? I just felt like I can take the whole word."

"What?! Why didn't you say so! Where is the rewind button?" he looked around making Silver laugh.

Zilver felt on his knees as a sharp pain stabbed him in the heart.

"Zilver!" Silver stood on shaky legs. "You okay?"

"Is that a question?" replied Crack while dragging Silver with him.

"Actually, no." He sat next to him. "Is there a hospital nearby?"

"I know a better place," said a white bat that landed next to them.

"You are… Rouge!" shouted Silver before thinking. She was the bat singer he glimpsed before.

"I'm flattered that such sweet boy knows my name."

Silver blushed. "No… Um, actually you reminded me, someone, I know…"

Zilver coughed. Silver put his hands on him, but he had no idea what to do. Shadow snorted and his hand gesture called med team. "Don't worry, my people know what they are doing." They put him on the stretcher and took him.

"By the way…" Shadow strictly looked at Silver. "Do you think you can just walk away after what you said?" He crossed his arms.

Silvers front quills went down. He just now realized what he did. He awkwardly smiled. "Can't blame a hedgehog for trying."

Shadow smirked. Rouge stood next to Silver, making him nervous. "You are good looking one."

"Em… not much… just a normal hedgehog…" He was blushing.

"And your power…" she slightly kissed his ear. He jerked and run away from her completely blushing. Not too far thou as he tripped and the overuse of his power finally took its price.

"Geez, now I have two unconscious hedgehogs to care for," Crack mumbled.

"Don't worry, we will help you. Your friends, after all, put a good show." Rouge in leg revealing dress smiled.

"Tell me about it. My chips are still wonky from it."

Medics took Silver away and Rouge guided Crack to the inner room. Shadow stayed only a while before he followed them. The ground below the energy ball was destroyed. During that time he felt… a fear. The fear of being defeated. Only one person was able to keep up with him… only the blue hedgehog.

To be continued…

* * *

So, how you are liking it so far? And yes, certain hedgehog will make his appearance next time and I won't stay only with him. There will be few more familiar faces, I hope you will enjoy reading their stories as much as I did writing it :-) If you have read this far, please leave review or at least fave the story (if you liked i), that's the only way I know you are reading it and not abandoning it in the middle :-D


	3. Forming a team

[A few hours later]

Silver squinted as he was sleepy. The room around him was white and light green and the bed was warm and comfortable. He turned to the side and smiled. The peace lasted only a few moments before he remembered recent events. 'Zilver!' His eyes were widely running from one place to another. There was a table near the opposite corner, two chairs and slightly open window with curtain.

The wind coming thru the gap was weak and warm. The room was divided by a green screen in half. Silver quickly found his shoes at the right side of the hospital's bed. He put them on and rushed from the room. Just behind the door he almost ran into Echidna nurse.

"No running in the hospital," she rebuked him.

"I'm sorry. Do you know where's my friend?" He quickly described Zilver, before noticing there is one more obvious question to ask. "And why am I here?"

The nurse patiently explained him everything, while showing him Zilver's room, but he was allowed only a short visit. Zilver looked weak. He was connected to a respirator and few tubing were stuck to his arms.

"Will he be alright?"

"His condition isn't critical, but he has yet to regain consciousness," said Echidna doctor that just entered the room. He looked at the medical card. "Now he needs rest, so please, leave."

Silver listened to him and left the room. He had nothing to do and he didn't see Crack, so he found a nice place in a garden of the hospital to relax on a bench under a tree.

"Feeling better?" Shadow approached him after a while.

"Yeah, thanks. Is this place…?"

"Yeah, it's funded by me and it has the best doctors you can find." The next minute was full of awkward silence. "So, what's your deal?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your robot friend mentioned something very interesting."

"That big mouth…" It's not like he wouldn't say it, it was just… he wanted to say it on his own.

"I want details. Now!" His voice was ordering him.

"It's not like I want to keep secrets… It's just complicated…"

"Spit it out!" he barked.

"Fine. Just listen to the end, 'kay?" Silver took a deep breath before he continued. "We wanted to ask you for a help, as we are planning to change the future by taking down the big and ugly monster."

Shadow winked few times before he raised his eyebrow. "And that's it? I heard better fairy tales."

"But it's true!" Silver jumped to his feet.

"Now, now, boys, we are on the hospital's grounds so behave." Rouge stopped Shadow from starting a fight. "It sounds interesting but what about to start from the beginning." She stood next to black and red hedgehog. "I believe introducing yourself would be a good first step." She winked at him, making him blush.

"Yeah, I totally forgot." He took another deep breath. "My name is Silver, Silver the Hedgehog. The robot is Crack and the one you fought is Zilver, I guess he is a hedgehog too or some kind of it."

"Your names sound similar. Are you brothers?" asked Rouge.

"No, that's impossible. I can assure you about that."

"How so?" Shadow frowned at him and crossed his arms.

"Because… I and Crack are from different dimension and Zilver is from your future." Both looked surprised but remained silent. He told them about lost Bits, how they met Zilver, about the monster and unfortunate fate of the planet. "… and so we are looking for additional help."

Shadow was frowning in disbelieve and was tapping with his finger showing a sign of impatience and irritability. Rouge smile disappeared half way through the story. She looked serious and in deep thoughts. Silver was waiting for their responses.

The bat finally made few steps toward him, got behind him and… suddenly hugged him pressing her chest against his back. "Uwaah!" Silver quickly got out from her embrace, looking scared and blushing.

Rouge smiled. "His story is true, Shadow."

"S-So you trust me? And what was that? Some kind of checking ability?" He was really embarrassed.

"More or less… no." She giggled. "I just doubt someone so cute can make a good lie."

"You are just like Crack." Silver's quills went down in a big depression. He really disliked when someone was making a fun of him like that.

"So, what do you say, Shadow?"

Both looked at him. He would maybe say something if someone blue didn't jump among them. "I say, let's kick its ass!"

"Sonic?!" shouted Silver and Rouge in unison.

"In a flesh!" He grinned. He looked almost as prime Sonic with the exception he was wearing dark blue and red vest, red and blue wristbands and cool looking rider glasses.

"No one asked for your help," growled Shadow.

"Glad to see you too, Shad'. Did you really think I would miss your fight?" They glared at each other for a while, before Sonic turned to Silver. "So, how am I?"

"Um…?"

"Like in your word." He hugged him around shoulders.

Silver awkwardly smiled as he didn't want to reveal anything like that. "Um… that's…" He noticed familiar robot. "Just a sec." He rushed toward Crack, who appeared nearby. "Tell me everything you know about this universe Sonic," Silver quickly whispered to him.

Cracked eyes flashed few times before he reacted. "Yeah, yeah." Crack looked tired. "It seems his personality is more or less the same, he isn't a hero but an illegal racer on extreme gears."

"Great." Silver wasn't happy. They returned to them.

"So, you are that robot, huh?" Sonic was examining him. "You have a cool design, but not as cool as me."

"Go to see oculist as you are blind." Crack turned his head to the side. "I have a better profile."

"Will you help us then?" asked Silver quickly.

"If you tell me about other-me, then yes." Sonic adjusted his glasses. It seemed it was his habit too.

"But-" started Silver, but Crack probed him in the ribs. "Fine, Sonic is part of a group known as Freedom Fighters, that helps people and he loves fun, fights, running and chili hot-dogs."

"Eck, chili hot dog… That guy should try sweet fries, they are the best."

"What about us?" asked Rouge and made a nice smile at him, making Silver blush one more time. He sighed.

"You two are pretty close there if I can tell," The bat smiled a lot. "You are working as a part of Team Dark for G.U.N."

"G.U.N.?!" shouted Shadow. "I'm their dog?!"

"Super cool dog," added Crack.

"Super agent," corrected him, Silver. "You both are their best agents. Doing top secret missions and stuff."

"Hey, you forgot Omega," pointed out Crack. "That guy is like walking arsenal and loves to blow thinks up."

"O… mega?" Shadow raised an eyebrow.

"You know him?"

"Something like that." Shadow slightly smiled. With his finger, he activated a mini ear-piece and called Omega. It took only a ten seconds or so for him to appear. From omega symbol on his shoulder plate, it was him… but…

"Omega, the ultimate janitor is here. Where is the wrecked trash!" Omega pulled from his body floorcloths, five types of brooms, countless of detergents and few rinse aids hold up by mechanical arms, buckets full of water (don't ask how) and some other janitor's stuff.

Silver had no time to appreciate his cleaning glory as he was frozen by shock. His jaw literally dropped.

"There are some hairs on that bench."

"Acknowledged." After a few seconds, the bench looked like new one. "Seeking new trash." With this, he flew away.

Crack… crashed on the ground laughing like crazy. The ultimate robot image… was shattered. Silver's corner of mouth twitched and soon he started to giggle. When they finally stopped, he asked: "So will you help us, Shadow?"

Shadow only made a silent snort and he walked away.

"Look, you may tell the truth, but we all need to think about it too," said Rouge. "And it's already late." She was right as the sun was setting. "I'm sure he will give you an answer tomorrow."

Rouge led them to their temporary rooms in the hospital. Silver fell on the bed and fell asleep in few minutes. Crack watched him for a while before he left the room. He had lots on his mind so he stopped at the roof.

'Stupid system…' he thought when he did like thousandth check up. He found no error, yet he felt something was strange. Like there was virus inside of him causing him to see images and hear voices he never encountered. It first happened during his meeting with that maverick robot File… Mile… whatever.

The word destruction caused him to malfunction for a short while. It felt like he was indeed built for that. And why did he interrupt professor Schlemmer? And it was getting worst. After he was short-circuited by Zilver he had few more strange visions.

Some fat guy, blue blur, some whirlpool or empty space. It made no sense and yet… it felt so familiar. Professor did mention he found him… right? And three Bits… He is super sure they invaded his personal space… from inside to boot. Did they mess up his coding? Are these images their work?

"Hack it," he silently cursed. The last one occurred not even hour ago. When he saw the blue hedgehog he wanted to rip him to the pieces. Only Silver's question brought him back to reality. He leaned against the wall and ran another test.

[The next morning]

They gathered in Shadow's office. Zilver was better too, as he had good night rest.

"Fine, I'll help you out," said Shadow.

"Thanks, man," Crack jokingly saluted.

"I could care less about the whole world, but no one messes with my city!" That sounded so much like Shadow. "So, wanna recruit someone else to this nonsense?"

"Actually, I was thinking about visiting Knuckles next," said Silver.

"That bookworm?" replied with a question Sonic.

"A bookworm?"

"Yeah, he lives in the Angel Island and studies ancient books, he is as well a history teacher on the Angel High school," explained Rouge. "Doesn't it bring memories?" she looked at Sonic and Shadow.

"What? You were going to a school?" Silver was honestly surprised.

"That's right. These two were rivals since kindergarten."

Silver chuckled. Just imagining it was funny.

"You should see them in science lessons. Professor Eggman always got a headache from them."

"Eggman? Like seriously?" once Silver shouted it, they wanted to know about his versions of Eggman and Knuckles. So he told them. Knuckles surprised them as he was always buried in books and Eggman was a pure shock. Hard to imagine him like a mad scientist when he is so kind in the school.

After another dozen of questions, Silver got information about other options… they were pretty much useless. Amy was a model, Sally was your average princess, Tails was working as a mechanic in some town, Bunny and Antoine were traveling performers and the others were unknown to any of them.

"Guess we will have to try it with this team." Sonic and Shadow were their powerhouses, while Crack can attack from range and close distance too, Silver with Zilver could give them a cover with their psychic abilities. They had a chance to win.

"Hey, you forgot someone," said Rouge. "Just because I mostly sing now, doesn't mean I'm not a fighter. I still have a strong kick." In a sec, she threw down her dress revealing spy attire. The heart symbol was present on her chest too.

"Hell yeah, no team is complete without a butt-kicking girl!" shouted Crack. Silver was sure he was trying his "socialization skill" again, but he let it be so.

"There is only one thing, to resolve," noted Shadow and looked angrily at Zilver.

'Oh man, don't tell me…' Rouge frowned a bit at him. She knew how much he hates to be called faker.

"Where… is that monster supposed to appear?"

Rouge sighed in her mind. 'So… he let it go for now. Good, but for how long?'

Silver looked at Zilver, realizing he had forgotten to ask the obvious question. He should learn to think more before an action. Zilver was silent like he was thinking… or simply ignoring Shadow.

Zilver's eyes slowly closed. 'How was it master saying?' He focused as old memories became blurry images with unclear words. His power was flowing into a cybernetic head. It covers almost half of it, making up for the parts that he didn't born with. The hexagonal rectangle glowed and from it ran thin lines to others dots and squares on it. It indeed looked like an electrical circuit.

Zilver was sitting at the edge of the cliff and watching the death land below the island. His master was standing beside him. No matter ho he tried, he couldn't remember him clearly. He had no idea how much time passed since his death.

"It happened so quickly…" his master's voice sounded like from far away place. "The ground erupted and columns of fire had burst out toward the sky." Both of them looked up. The sun was setting, dyeing the ground to a brighter red. "That day the planet cried and in few months it turned into living hell. Most population died within that time. There was no hope, only suffering. No one could stop it neither prevent it, we could only fall to despair. But even so, we still tried and tried, even if it meant to lose the ones we loved." The voice of his master was now even weaker and his image now resembled only foggy figure. "Now, listen to me carefully. You must never give up. Keep your head high. You are our only hope. I'm too old and weak to change anything, but you… may have the chance."

'Master… was this the chance you spoken of? Were you able to see a hope in the future?' But this still wasn't the memory he was looking for. He tried to remember… it was there, yet not. Where was it? Where did it disappear? Is it forever gone? Just like… No! It has to be there! 'I have to find it!'

"Oi, oi…" muttered Crack. Zilver's body was shining even more and some sparks sparkled here and there.

"It looks like he is suffering," noted Silver.

"Guess so, his body is after all worn out."

Shadow was still sitting behind his desk with legs on it. He looked uninterested but was actually thinking. He remembered one another person they can ask for help. Another guy he could have a decent fight. Actually, it was some time since he saw him last. This could be good opportunity to see him as any other.

Zilver was now reading a book showing a world before almost one hundred and fifty years ago. He could only read about it. The trees, rivers, animals and everything… turned to ash.

"That book again?" said his master.

]Yes, I really like it.[ He closed it and put back to the bookshelf. ]I'll prepare the dinner,[" Zilver went to a small kitchen. They had only a little of food supply left and the garden provided poorer and poorer harvest every year .

"I'll do it," said foggy figure. Not even this memory was clear. Everything around him was foggy.

He pushed even this memory back and look for another one.

"Be always on your guard."

"Learn to listen to your surroundings."

"Never underestimate your enemy."

"I was unable… to save them… my brother… even her…"

"Is the despair the only thing for us now?"

The memories of his master's teachings started to flow one after another. The glimpses of the past appeared from the darkness to be engulfed by it in the next moment. Zilver felt his body is shaking and screaming.

'I can't give up now!'

"For this… she paid with her life…" the foggy shadow showed him a map. "This is the place… eep now… down…"

'Master, what you are saying?'

"We… no, I failed… I failed everyone… especially her…"

'That's not true, you did not…'

His memories cleared for a short moment. He was lying on the ground and master's back were before his eyes.

"Are you alright?" His head slightly looked back.

]M-Master?[ Zilver was shaking. Before them was a big lizard with a dragon-like head. Almost its whole body was engulfed in flames and covered by molten stones and the cave around him looked so small, but it was, in reality, enormous.

"Run."

]What?[ cybernetic hedgehog jerked.

"RUN!" His master screamed and ran toward the roaring monster. "You have taken a lot of people from me! I won't allow you to take him! NOT HIM!"

]Master![ Zilver stood up to witness his master's last struggle.

"Chaos Control!" The lizard stopped moving engulfed by green flames. "Chaos Spea-!" Master's voice broken as the blade made from purple crystals ran through his body.

"Y-You…" he spat a blood and was thrown on the ground.

]Master![ Yelled Zilver and rushed toward him tripping over everything. ]Master![ He touched his body.

"I told you to…"

]No, I can't live without you![ He tried to stop the blood with his hands, but it was pointless.

"How cute…" said sarcastic and cold voice. It belonged to the dark purple hedgehog-like creature, whose body was partly covered by light purple crystal structures. His sclera was bloody red and eyes were yellow and glowing. He walked on stumpy legs.

Zilver shook and burst in an anger. ]You monster![ His body glowed and he created a big tornado covering them. Monstrous hedgehog retreated to safety and when the wind calmed down, they were gone.

Zilver took his master back to the Angel island. He talked with him the whole flight, he leaned him against the wall in the last room, he shook with him… before he burst into the tears. His master was death and his body was slowly undergoing crystallization.

To be continued…

* * *

Some neat stuff was revealed, don't you think? ... No, it's totally obvious, right :-D (I doubt I can surprise you with anything) Next chapter you will finally see a new member of the team. Personally its one of my favorite... or more like I like this whole arc a lot. And by making it big I feel the last story will be a bit disappointing (not to mention I don't even have an outline for it. Well, I'll figure out something). If you have read the whole thing please leave review or fave (if you do so, I'll be sure to update on time next time) :-)

And one more thing... are the chapteres too long? Should I shorten them a bit (aka making a part a and b of chapter X)?


	4. Is there a ghost buster in the house?

Zilver fell on the ground, panting.

"Hey, don't overdo it!" Silver knelt beside him and helped him to stand.

"So, did you remember something?" asked Crack while leaning against the wall.

Zilver only shook his head.

"Great!" shouted Shadow indignantly, "We just wasted a time and got nothing!"

"It's not Zilver's fault!"

"Well, he is supposed to know all the important facts!"

"That's enough, boys!" Rouge stepped in and Shadow only snorted. "Did you really remember nothing?"

Zilver shook his head. Silver snapped his fingers. "The Master Emerald! It may give Zilver enough juice to help him to find this information!"

]How do you…?[

"Ugh, about that," Silver scratched his quills, "I sorta saw the last room so I know."

Zilver didn't comment it.

"Then it's decided, our next stop is The Angel Island!" said Rouge and ended the discussion.

* * *

After a half hour, they all were sitting in Shadow's personal big helicopter. He even piloted it. Zilver was all the time glued to the window frantically looking at everything. Crack on the other side was unusually quiet. He was running another test and he as well gathered information about this word.

"There it is!" Silver pointed toward big floating land. Its bottom was covered by clouds and the island had a lake, few mountains, a desert and even green plains. Zilver watched at it with his mouth wide open. It must have been a shock for him to see it so lively. Soon they landed at the small port on the edge of the island.

"See you later, slowies!" Sonic ran ahead, leaving only dust.

Rest of the group waited a bit for the bus. Zilver's eyes were moving like crazy. His hands jerked here and there as he wanted to stop and touch everything, but he knew his mission is much more important than anything else.

The road took them to a building complex. The buildings were obviously very old, but very well maintained. Most of them were decorated with pictures, frescoes and more. The streets were full of echidnas, rabbits, cats, dogs, turtles, two-tailed foxes and more. No one particular was paying any attention to them. The paths were lined with trees, bushes and flower pots. At the center of the complex was big palace like building and the sign in front of it said it's the Angel High school.

"What took you so long?" greeted them Sonic that was waiting at the entrance. He adjusted his glasses a bit. Shadow was only frowning. "Let's go, I'll show you around." Sonic waved his hand. Everyone followed him. The school ground was full of students caring books, chatting, laughing, studying under the trees or just walking.

Sonic was showing them where everything is while he guided them into the main building in the middle of the complex. It had beige to brown color and the corridors were decorated with pictures, pinboards, and maps. Many teachers recognized Sonic and Shadow and not many of them were glad to see them again.

"Do you know where Knuckles is, we need to talk."

"He is in the central study as always," answered walrus teacher with stiff expression.

"Thanks, bye!"

The study was the central pillar of this island as it not just contained numerous books about history but the Master Emerald itself. Knuckles the Echidna was at the ladder sorting some books in the tall bookcase.

"Hey, teach' Knuckles, how it's goin'?"

Echidna looked back. Silver recognized him as Knuckles, but his face had lot more calm and friendly look. He also wears a poncho of beige color with red and blue dots and squares around the edge.

"Ah, our famous troublemakers." He climbed down. "What brings you here?" Unlike others teachers, he seemed to be glad to see them.

"I'll leave it to this guy," he pushed Silver to the front.

"Good day sir, my name's Silver, Silver the Hedgehog and I have a request for you. I know it sounds crazy, but it's a truth." Silver talked about Zilver's need to use the Master Emerald, the big danger and only slightly touched the topics of future and different dimensions to not make it too complicated.

Knuckles was silently listening and put his round glasses back to its place as it had a tendency to slide down a bit. "It's fascinating… and frightening. But to think something so old is lying underneath the ground without our knowledge."

"So will you lend us it?"

"The chaos energy is powerful, please, be careful." Knuckles beckoned to Zilver to touch the Emerald, while he stood on the other side. Cybernetic hedgehog did so and his fur bristled. He never felt the Master Emerald so strong. It almost scared him. He gently put his hand on its warm and green surface. His face was mirrored by it so clearly. From his head raised thin cables that connected to Emerald. The chaos energy filled him, while Knuckles made sure it isn't too much. The memories became clear.

]It will appear seven days from now in the Lost Valley.[

"Lost Valley?" said Knuckles surprised.

"Is that a special place?" asked Silver.

"It's a boring place," answered Shadow.

"Don't be like that," disagreed Sonic, "It's a perfect place for morning joggin'."

"In other words, it's a hard place to travel if you aren't up to the challenge," ended the explanation Rouge.

"Sounds dangerous," admitted Silver.

"Come on, dangerous is the nature of our goal," Crack solemnly said.

"Ah, Shadow, Sonic, can you come for a sec?" Silver called them to the corner to have some privacy.

"What it is?" Shadow was frowning.

"Did you… em, touched the Master Emerald and went super?"

"Went what?" asked Sonic.

"I mean like you got super powers, turned gold, were flying and being pretty much invincible."

"Cool!" Sonic's eyes sparkled and he turned toward the jewel.

"Don't even try it!"

"Why not?" griped Shadow.

"It's not so simple! You will get insane power, but one wrong step and you may destroy everything around you!" Silver was looking deadly serious.

"Did you go super?" asked black hedgehog.

"Yeah, and tell the true, I hope I'll never need it again. The power up is cool and all, but I felt like a different hedgehog. I thought there is nothing impossible and I can do everything on my own. I could easily do more harm than good."

"So you can easily lose the sight of your true goal," said Shadow thoughtfully.

"Cheez, fine, I won't touch it," promised Sonic. "I'm already enough cool."

They returned to the rest of the group, to find Zilver reading a book. He was totally ignoring his surroundings.

"So what now?" asked Rouge.

"I thought about one more guy to recruit," said Shadow and crossed his hands as it was another habit of his."You will come with me." He looked at Silver, giving him clear sign this is an order.

"Uh, oh," Silver swallowed.

"Fine, then I'll stay here and look for more information," Crack pointed to the books. The chance to find something useful was small, but they had one week until it awakens.

"That's a good idea, I'll help you," offered Rouge.

Silver looked at them. He was kinda hoping one of them could accompany him.

"Well, in that case, I should be goin' too." Sonic winked. "I'll do some warmin' up trainin'. See ya!" With this, he left only a dust and some screams were heard from the corridor. Silver looked at Zilver, but seeing his shining eyes, he couldn't ask him to go with them.

"Let's go," said Shadow and without waiting on Silver, he headed toward the exit.

"Just a sec," Silver asked Knuckles for a moment.

"What is it?"

"Well," Silver averted his eyes and started to play with thumbs, "it's about the Master Emerald… I hope we won't need it, but it's just if we could borro-"

"Absolutely NO!" Knuckles raised his voice.

"I kind of knew, you will say it. But, please, think about it. The future of this planet is at the stake here." Silver said goodbye and rushed after Shadow, who already almost left the school grounds.

Along the way, he noticed a tall man with a big orange mustache, round body, and small head. He made an awkward smile at him as it was no one else than Dr. Eggman, or in the case of this universe, professor Eggman.

The professor entered the central library. "Did I just see Sonic running thru corridor like in old days?" he asked Knuckles.

"Depends on what you saw first, the dust rushing after him or the blue blur," answered Echidna jokingly. No one succeeded in following Sonic with his eyes.

Eggman smiled. "Do we have here new students?" He looked at Zilver and Crack.

"Unfortunately not, we may soon have a lot more trouble than during Double S times." Double S times referred to the time when Sonic and Shadow were full-time students here. There was hardly any week without them causing some trouble.

"I guess it will be good to fill in prof. Eggman too," Rouge approached them.

Eggman was changing his expressions from doubtful, surprised to shocked. At the end, he settled with frowning. "That's so… unbelievable."

"We all agreed on that, but it's too crazy to be a lie." They all looked at Zilver, which took another book. Eggman was teaching a robotic and science here, so he took a closer look at Zilver's body. He had to admit he is a state of the art.

"So I believe there is one question we all need to answer," he turned toward Knuckles and Rouge. Crack looked down from his post from the balcony. Eggman continued: "What we can do to stop it? We all have our choices, but it's up to us to pick one."

Knuckles glanced at the Master Emerald. His ancestors protected it for generations and built a school around it to spread peace and help Mobians to understand each other. He couldn't just take it from its place.

* * *

The helicopter was in the air for like two hours. Or it seemed like that. Silver was nervous, he had no idea what to talk about and starting about the nice weather wasn't the best start at all.

"We are here," said Shadow to the microphone. Silver looked out of the window. The area bellows them looked like ruins, but it was an actually functional city. It was darker and messier than Alvain City. Shadow landed at an empty spot at the edge of the labyrinth of back alleys and up to three-storey high buildings.

"Take this," Shadow threw at him a cape once they touched the ground. "Make sure to hide your face, you look too weak."

Silver made sour smile. He hated being underestimated, but he easily got nervous and he didn't want any problems. As they walked toward their new teammate, he tried not to look around too much. Everyone here looked tough, bad and dangerous. Who could live here that would be willing to help them?

Shadow sure didn't want to share any information about it with him. He must still be angry about that arena incident. Should he apologize? But he only stopped them from causing a cave in. And he was saying the truth… oh, crud, he will get a headache from all of the thinking. Silver noticed, they went through the city and exited it without any problems.

It was obvious it was thanks to Shadow's presence, otherwise, he would have to fight all different punks. The new path led them to an old two-storey high building. It looked slightly better than the buildings in the city. Shadow entered it and the door squeaked. Silver got goosebumps from it. The atmosphere was quiet, but Silver had a feeling there are eyes watching them.

The big entrance hall led them to dinner hall or some other bigger room, at the end was big comfy chair and someone was sitting at it. The lights were dim and he only recognized his basic shape. Well, he at least thought the one sitting is he.

"Well, well, so you showed up."

'That voice!?' Silver jerked.

Shadow snorted, not showing any emotion. The figure stood up, revealing it wore tight tattered trousers with side pockets. Its skin was black and red just like Shadows and he had similar quills like him too, only bent more upwards and a long tail with a simple hook.

"Eclipse!" shouted Silver happily, but immediately looked awkward and made a step back. It sure was man-eating Black Arms alien, Shadow's half brother and strong fighter and his version of these brothers couldn't really see eye to eye.

"What took you so long to visit me, bro?" he completely ignored Silver. He chuckled. "Whatever, you never had a habit of explaining yourself anyway." He looked at Silver and the white hedgehog got a really bad feeling. Bad as in oh, crud. "And I see you brought the snack. Seem a little thin thou."

"W-What?!" Silver looked terrified at Shadow, but he had no reaction.

"Bone appetite," Eclipse licked his lips and jump at Silver. Hedgehog ran from him.

"There must be some sort of misunderstanding! Let's talk."

"No prob, just after the snack," replied Eclipse with a wide smile.

"What about before?" Silver ducked to avoid his kick.

"Can't think with an empty stomach." Silver flew away. "Hey, cool, I like when my prey makes it more fun." From the building shadows flew small black bird. It was Cregal, which transforms his user's arms into wings. Silver silently screamed and flew outside to have more space, but that was true for Eclipse as well. "Is that all you can do?" asked alien when he brought Silver down. Hedgehog stopped his fall in the last minute.

'I have to do something and quick!' Silver looked around. The space behind the house was a big scrap yard full of trash, metal pieces, old cars, debris and much more. 'There has to be something I can use!'

"Here I come!" shouted Eclipse and took aim toward the hedgehog.

"You look tired!" shouted Silver back and waved his hand. "Here's a hammock, go take a nap!" He has thrown at him an old net, catching him. Eclipse was fighting it. "Can we talk now?"

Cregal left his body and Eclipse fell on the ground landing on his feet. "When the fun just began?" He ripped thru it like nothing. The eel-like Cyzer gave Eclipse his power.

'Oh, great, now he has lasers!' Silver well remembered his Dark Arm's abilities as he had to fight them at one time. He retreated behind the hills of the trash. 'What now? These lasers can shoot thru anything.' And as to make his words true, blue beam cut the trash obstacle just one meter away from him. 'Yaiks!'

"Is that all you've got?" shouted Eclipse. "I thought you are better than this!" Few lasers flew thru mountains of debris. "How pathetic."

Silver clenched his fists. It indeed was frustrating. He was hiding like a coward instead of fighting, with the small difference he didn't want to fight at the first place.

"Found you," whispered Eclipse happily at Silver. He was so caught in his own thoughts he completely overheard him sneaking up behind him.

„Oh, crud!" Silver quickly grabbed some trash and throw it at him. The laser beam cut thru it like it was an air and burned few hairs on the side of his front quill. Silver sniffed a burn. He gritted his teeth and flew behind another mountain.

„That again? Can't you come up with something original? Make it more interesting!" he ran after Silver and once he was just about the corner a rain of debris started to fall on him. "That's more like it!" He shot them all. Behind the smoke, he saw a white silhouette. "I've got you!" He jumped toward it and grabbed it, but immediately noticed he has been had. It wasn't Silver but a metal figure in his shape dyed in a white color that was still fresh.

„Missed me?" Silver shouted behind him and as Eclipse was in the mid-air he couldn't completely avoid Silver's metal ball. It hit him hard and sent him few meters away. „Did you have enough?"

„Why to end when the main course haven't been served yet," answered Eclipse with a big smile. Cyzer left his body, leaving Eclipse without any power up. Silver felt quite confident he can beat him, so he rushed toward him and tackled him. But he greatly miscalculated Eclipse's strength. He grabbed him and tossed him against the wall.

Silver saw stars for a while. When he opened eyes Eclipse before him was a huge monster at least three times taller than him. „Here's the main course!" He punched him in the stomach. Silver sink more in the trash and gasped for the air.

‚What's this?' He never saw him do it. ‚This is bad! Oh, crud bad!' Eclipse sure look terrifying, his red parts of his skin transformed to some sort of armor, he got more muscles, he got bigger and sturdier red collar and over his forehead was orange-yellow crown like plates. His shining eyes gave him even more intimidating appearance.

„Finished already?" He looked almost sad, but then he grinned. „Well, you need to tenderize your steaks before grilling after all." He stepped back to gave his punch longer trajectory. Silver squinted his eyes, ready to take some pain.

To be continued…

* * *

So, who saw Eclipse coming? Anyone? Hope you like him, he is a bit-e of a joker. I do hope some of the jokes and bad puns were at least bearable :-D I like the part he is fighting with Silver. So if you enjoyed this please leave fav or review :-)


	5. Fighting with findings

Meanwhile in the Angel Island's library Zilver finally noticed he spent time reading. Rouge assured him finding information is equally important as finding a new teammate. Zilver had doubts Silver can do it, but since Shadow was with him, what could go wrong?

On the other hand, he didn't like him at all. He felt he reminds him his late master and the fact irritated him. He was strong but had no dignity, style, warm smile and… and it just irritated him. It felt like his very existence is tarnishing his late master. The other matter that kept him confused was an inability to remember master's face or anyone else. He remembered anything else just fine.

He shook his head. There was no time to care about small details, once they beat Iblis nothing else will matter. Knuckles was sitting next to Emerald. He tried not to think about Silver's request. What would happen to Island without it? Well, for the starter the island would sink as it's the gem's power that keeps it floating.

„Something matters, old friend?" asked him Eggman as they were teaching here for a long time.

„N-Nothing, I just can't find anything useful."

„There is no need to lie. You always sit next to the Master Emerald when you are seriously worried about it."

Knuckles made guilty smile. „You know me well."

„Ehm, professor Eggman?" Crack approached them.

„Yes?"

„Can I ask you a favor?"

"Go ahead."

„Could you check my system? I was zapped by psychic powers few times and I'm not sure if my scans are reliable."

„So you want me to…!" Eggman was shining like a child in front of a sweet shop.

„Or… well, you must be busy-!" Crack tried to back down.

„No worries, my 'bot!" Eggman grabbed his arm. „My laboratory is always open!" He dragged him there not hearing his complaints. „Makes yourself as home." He let him go, once they arrived. Eggman's laboratory was pretty big and full of machines and other scientific stuff.

„Would you like to make a coffee, professor?" asked the human a blue hedgehog robot. Crack jerked. They looked a lot similar.

„Oh yes, that would be nice of you, Metal."

„Just a moment, please." The robot went to the small kitchen at the back of the laboratory.

„Metal?"

„Yes, he is my creation. I hoped if I make well behaved Sonic-like robot Sonic will learn to behave."

„A take it failed pretty bad," said Crack jokingly.

„That's right, but I got a really nice companion." Eggman turned to a computer screen next to an „operation" table to set the device for a scan. Crack felt he knows this man. But wasn't it Schlemmer that made him… wait he found him! So he came from Silver's time after all, right? His head was suddenly heavy. He knew he was missing something important and that something would be like half of his memories. Not to mention that weird behavior switch that already occurred few times. He sure doesn't need to malfunction in the middle of the big-butt monster's fight.

„The scan is ready, please lie here," he patted the table.

Cracks sighed and lay there. Eggman opened his core and connected few cables. „Would you like to read during the scan?" He showed him the latest issue of Mechanical World.

„Yeah, why not?" he took it.

During the scan, the professor made few „hmmm", „oh" and „how interesting" sounds. Crack as well glimpsed here and there to the screen, hardly noticing what he is reading in the magazine.

When Eggman said „Hmm" like for dozen of time, Crack snapped: „Is that a good hmm or a bad hmm?"

„Ah, sorry, I was lost in the thoughts." He turned to him and unplugged the cables. „To tell the truth, I would need more time for deeper analysis. Now I can tell your memory is partly blocked and your body is from different old parts."

„Meaning?" He sat.

„It could mean someone made you and then somebody else a lot later replaced parts of you."

„Well, professor Schlemmer mentioned something like finding me before repairing."

"That must be it. He must have also studied my work, your design is so much like Metal's here."

Crack looked at him. Since he finished making the coffee, he started to clean. For a sec, he thought that if Omega is a janitor in this world and a walking war machine in Silver's one so what if is this one his alternative version? He immediately pushed it back. How could his awesome self end up as a house robot?

„I can try to make a program that may unblock it."

"Thanks, prof, I better return to the library. I sure hope we can find something there." With that, he headed back.

* * *

Silver growled and his body shined.

„What?!" Eclipse made a step back.

„You jerk!" Silver grabbed all the trash around him and bombarded Eclipse with it. He smashed most of it, but he took lots of hits.

„Finally, some fun!" he laughed and punched a car, completely crushing it.

„Here's more!" Another barrage of the trash headed Eclipse's way.

„So repetitive!" He threw one punch after another, but then one piece changed its trajectory hitting him from bellow to the chin. That sudden blow forced him to lean back followed by back step. „W-Whoa-!" he shouted as he stepped on an oil spill. He fell on his back hitting his head against the ground.

„Here's some dessert!" mimicked Silver his words and threw a small mountain of the trash on him covering him whole except for the head. "Can we just talk already or do you need more reasons to fall on you!?" yelled Silver at laying Eclipse. For a moment, Eclipse just stared at him, before he burst into laughter. "What's so funny?!" Silver was panting, bristling and seriously angry.

„You were right, bro!" His skin started to dissolve. Silver jerked and quickly removed the trash, worrying he actually hurt him. His monstrous skin fell from his body and slowly dissolved into nothingness. Underneath was normal Eclipse, slowly standing on his shaky legs. „You were right! He just needed a little push."

Silver finally noticed that Shadow was behind him and having a sly smile. „But you didn't tal- Wait a minute!" Silver jumped. "Telepathy! You two talked with your Black Arms' telepathy!"

Eclipse hugged him over his shoulder. „I see you are well informed, given it's something only we know." He looked tired and satisfied.

„Why did you do that, Shadow? We could seriously hurt each other!"

Eclipse laugh. "Me? Serious? If I was serious, you wouldn't get off so easily." Silver pointed at his burned fur. "You will know I'm serious when you will be down in ten seconds."

"Pff," Shadow snorted. „You act all the time as some sissy and weakling full of talks. I wanted to see you serious. If we are going to fight big monster I don't want to constantly save your tail."

„If you wanted to see my power, you could just ask."

„Showing and fighting for your life are two different things."

„All's well, that ends well." Eclipse ruffled Silver's quills in a friendly manner. „I don't know how you, but all the talks about the food made me hungry. Who's for some grub?" Before Silver could have an objection his stomach rumbled. The time flew so fast he didn't notice it was already late afternoon. „I take it as yes!" He rushed towards his home.

Both hedgehogs followed him. Silver then noticed there is a big scar on Eclipse's back. It looked like he was badly burned. Shadow showed him a way to a smaller room. It was the actual dining room and was much cleaner than the rest of the house. Eclipse cleaned and cared only about the parts that he personally used, the other rooms were left untied to be more "intimidating".

Darklings were present too, waiting in front of their plates. Silver noticed their personalities and appearances were pretty much the same as he remembered them, but with smaller scars all over their bodies. The room was slightly decorated with flowers in a vase and few pieces of furniture like a cabin.

„Sorry for the waiting!" called Eclipse and snapped his fingers. „Chaos Control – Serving!" From the chaos's mist emerged plates with deliciously redolent food. Darklings started to eat while Silver was looking at it in surprise. „What? Don't like it?"

„No, no, it just surprised me, that's all." He quickly started to eat. „Delicious!" As he had only a few chances to taste somebody else cooking he really enjoyed it. Shadow showed no such reaction, looking more bored than anything else.

After the food, Eclipse used Chaos control to take the plates away. Silver went outside to take a small stroll. Soon he saw a trash he tossed at Eclipse during their fight. He started to clean.

"It sure is hard to believe you can be a tough opponent when you smile like that," commented his work Eclipse.

„Geez, thanks," he put the last pile of the debris out of the path. Eclipse was watching him. „What now?" asked Silver slightly irritated.

„So, I exist in your word too?"

Silver jerked. „Well…"

„It's no use to lie, Shadow told me everything and he sure didn't mention my name to you."

„OK, I have met you there, satisfied?"

„Still angry for that small prank, are you?"

Silver would never call it a small prank. „So, will you help us?"

„I have no reason to doubt bro's words, but a guy from the future, dimension traveling, and big-butt fire monster is sure a lot to take even for an alien like me."

"Tell me about it," how could he forget his own experience when he had no idea what's happening around him?

"And I have a message from bro." Silver got a really bad feeling. „You are staying here."

„What?"

„Somebody has to put you into a shape."

„You mean like…"

„Yup, prepare your tail, it will be a wild ride!" Eclipse jumped toward him.

„Shadow, you idiot!" shouted Silver. But if he wants a fight, he will give him one.

* * *

Shadow was smiling as he headed back to his city. He called Rouge and informed her about their new recruit. Once he landed he headed to his office. He made some quick arrangement so his subordinates can manage the next week without him. Then he headed to one more place before he will go training.

It was a very special place for him. He ran there and he realized it was far too long since he ran. The wind was pressing against his face and he was leaving only a black and red blur and a lot of dust behind him. His rocket shoes were silent as they used to be. Since they creation they had no need to be upgraded or repaired. The doctor did an excellent job with them.

The sun started to set when he reached his destination. It was a pair of tombstones. One belonged to Maria Robotnik and another to Gerald Robotnik, his creator. He put a single and simple flower on each of the graves. He could remember the time he spent with them like it all happened just yesterday. Gerald made him by mixing a blood of Mobian hedgehog and from Black Doom to create an ultimate lifeform. When he first woke up, he was three years old.

Maria Robotnik was at the time ten years old and was for him like an older sister. After one year he spent on space colony Arc he was sent to Mobius to attend a kindergarten. He was at that time furious about it. He wanted to stay at colony as he saw other life forms below his level. But Maria convicted him that he will make lots of friends and she wanted to hear what he did and saw there. So he agreed.

There he met Sonic the Hedgehog, his eternal rival. At that time, he couldn't beat him in a speed. As a child he didn't notice how much he talked about him and his frustration of being slow, so Gerald made him for his fifth (technically his seconds) birthday rocket shoes. He loved them from the first sight and quickly learned to use them. From that time, he competed with Sonic in everything. Gerald than heard a lot more often from his homeroom teacher what he did.

The time passed quickly and soon Shadow turned sixteen. He knew why he was created – to provide medicine for very rare and at the moment incurable disease. Gerald already spent years studying his D.N.A. and conducted many experiments, but he couldn't find a way how to turn it into medicine. His granddaughter condition became more serious and soon after that she died. A few days later Gerald took his own life and the colony was shut down.

Shadow lost everything and was decimated by it. He left the school without a word and drifted here and there. With passing months, he was more and more fighting, gaining fame, but it took him several years before he settled in Alvain city and took a control of the downtown.

Shadow of the present shook his head, driving away old memories.

To be continued…

* * *

How'd you liked the fight? I'm kinda proud of it as it wasn't so straightforward. Did anyone of you guessed the next member of the team will be Eclipse? And what about Shadow's past? I spiced it up a bit. And surprisingly this is the shortest chapter yet. I have a good new - This part of the story is already finished and is waiting for some minor changes and correstions, the bad new is - I have no idea where to place the third Bits ^_^;. Any suggestion? See you next chapter and please give this R&R if you liked it.

PS. Everyone here has his/her own past that shall be revealed at later date. Stay tuned ;-)

PS2. SORRYYYYY! Just know I noticed the system won't allow me to use *** as breaker in the story! I'm gonna fix it everywhere! (Edit: So I'm now using the standard breaker in this editor. Sorry for the inconvience)


	6. Unexpected discoveries

[Two days later at Eclipse's house]

"You're not half bad," commented Eclipse Silver's improvement.

"Thanks."

Both were tired and panting. Silver greatly improved, using more strategies and Eclipse… well, he started to thinking more too. Darklings were helping with Silver's training as well, giving him a lot harder time. Their days were full of training, taking care of the house and cooking lessons. Eclipse, despite being man-eating alien and growing up with their specific fruit, found great pleasure in human cuisine.

Silver loved his cooking and learned a lot from him while offering few humble recipes himself. After a training, he always went to shower. The warm water washed away tiredness. He again felt alive. He dried himself and put his boots and bracelets on.

It was nice evening and he had some free time. He already explored most of the rooms in the house. There was just one, that pinched his interest. He once saw Eclipse exiting it and making a bit awkward expression. He said that room is a huge mess and not worth of the time to clean for various reasons. Eclipse was now preparing dinner. Silver couldn't ask for the better opportunity.

He carefully looked around. Darklings could still hinder his plan to discover the secret of the last room. He didn't see them. He quickly flew to the next floor. The last room was actually located under the triangular roof. In front of the ladder to attic Silver once more looked around. No one saw him. He opened the hatch as slowly as he could.

He flew up and closed. His jaw fell… the whole space was occupied by…

* * *

[At Angel Island Library]

Zilver was getting impatient. He felt he should do more, a lot more to stop Iblis. He loved books but no information in them helped him to get closer to his goal. He returned another useless book to its place. Rouge sighed. She already talked to him about it many times yet she couldn't calm him down. She didn't understand him. She never saw what he was seeing his whole life.

He flew little higher. Noticing Crack at his left side. He often left somewhere. He heard he was going to Eggman for some treatment. He could care less. He touched book covers feeling their textures. He was… slowly losing a hope. What if this all is meaningless? Is this just false hope? Will it just delay unavoidable…

He leaned against the wall of books with his forehead. He felt so tired… like never before. Like that time… when he lost his master.

"How long you are gonna swim in your self-pity?" Zilver jolted as Crack brought him back to reality. "Done with you beauty sleep?"

]That's none of your problems![ he answered angrily.

"You sure? It's pretty dumb to see the main guy who wants to change his future be such gloom dude."

]You don't understand. You haven't seen…[

"Yeah, I saw it, my tail still remembers it." He patted it.

]That's not the same![

"Maybe not, but we are in this together and we will finish it together, so put yourself together." He sighted. "If you lose hope how can we carry it?" He looked down. Rouge and Knuckles were watching them, waiting for his reaction. "You know, Silvie is trying hard to keep his promise."

]How do you know it?[

"Well, I just got this funny feelin'. I mean I know him for like few days but he already showed me he can be serious, strong and stupid. And somewhere among it all I just… started to believe in him. Sure, he looks like a weakling and all, but he has this… inner fire… no offense, It's just…. Agh, I just wanna give it my all, or I'll never forgive myself."

Zilver thought about his words. He felt ashamed. How can he give up? He promised his master he will defeat Iblis and the dark hedgehog. ]I understand.[

"So, let's give it all!"

Zilver turned toward bookcase and took one book, but it didn't budge. Hedgehog used more strength, but the book stayed in its place. Zilver growled and wanted to use his power to pull it out when he remembered his master's words about strategy. "If you can't pull, then push." So he tried to press the book. Something made clacking sound and the part of the bookcase moved back and slid to the side.

"What's happening?" shouted Rouge, climbing to them.

"Zilver just found the charm of the old classic," replied robot slightly sarcastic.

"A secret door?" said Knuckles in a daze.

"Ya mean, you had no idea it's here?" asked Crack.

"Um, yes… no… I had no idea. No one mentioned anything about this."

"Some guardian ya are," mumbled Crack, making Knuckles bitter.

Zilver went inside. Behind the bookcase was a hole leading down. It was hard to see it and anyone could easily fall down.

"I see, whoever wants to get down has to have a rope, ability to fly or at least be good climbers," said Rouge. It was obvious Echidnas, who had natural ability to glide and climb, had an easy access. "Let's go."

Everyone slowly went down, Rouge hold onto a wall to control her descent, and once they were few meters below the hole, the secret passage closed itself.

"Great, now we are in the dark!" grumbled Knuckles slightly.

"Chill out, let me cast some light on this shady matter," Crack switched on lights in eyes. "Let's go and bring this mystery to the light."

They transcendent even more. According to Crack, the hole was already more than 600 meters deep, making it more than 300 meters bellow the deepest level of the school. Finally, after another 200 meters they touched the ground.

"Look at this!" Knuckles rushed toward doors, that were full of dust and many letters from Echidnas' first language were engraved into it.

"What is says?" asked Rouge. She slightly touched the surface, that was surprisingly smooth. She expected more rough work for such an old artifact. On the other hand, Echidnas were known as the fastest advanced race. Not even the oldest of Knuckles' kin knew about everything, making many of their secrets lost in the time.

"I think…" Knuckles squinted, "… it's a warning."

"Yup, clean your boots before entering, right?" Everybody glared at Crack. "What?"

Knuckles returned to examining the lettering. "Beware of the… burning sun… never disturb its sleep… keep the flames in the dark… the darkness fears green light… seven stars put to the sleep… "

"Meaning?" Crack was a bit impatient.

"Is something behind these doors?" asked Rouge.

"I have no idea." Echidna made few steps back.

Zilver's body was engulfed by his energy and he let it wrap around the door.

"Just don't break it, Zilvie, we have no idea, if we will need to shut it again," said Crack as his scan was reaching only up to the doors like there was some kind of energy barrier. The door slowly opened, and nothing ran toward them. They went inside.

"Fascinating," whispered Knuckles as the walls of the round room were painted with frescoes showing some big battle against a fire monster.

]Iblis![ Zilver angrily said and clenched his fists, while his aura became more dark and wild.

Crack this time had no sarcastic remark. Even he knew when to be silent. He was carefully scanning the whole picture. It started with a flame ball, that grew into a monster and it's shadow turned into another one. Then the duo started to devour ancient civilizations that even this library had no information about.

As the chaos spread, many ancient people gathered and fought against this monster, while many ended in crystals or were burned. The war must have been long, but at the end handful of brave warriors were able to seal both monsters away. The sealing site had seven pillars that represented corners of a star. Ancient people after the ritual buried the brave warriors, that paid with their lives, near the ritual site, as they watched over the monsters even in their deaths.

Crack zoomed the silhouette of the brave warriors. They looked like Mobians and one of them was maybe a human. But it was hard to tell as the pictures were faded and damaged.

"Look at this." Knuckles was standing before tall stone pillar, that was in the middle of the room. "I was able to partly decrypt it." He touched the surface.

"So what is says?" asked Rouge. She felt her heart beating pretty fast. Her blood was rushing thru her, like in old days when she was a thief. But these were long gone and she had no desire to return to them. Or more like… she couldn't do it… not for that memory and the scar.

"I don't know all the details, but it says the monster is the beginning and the end. It started everything and it will end everything. It comes from the sun and it will return everything to the sun when the sun comes down."

"Sun comes down?" said Rouge with disbelief.

"It sounds like the planet will leave its orbit," noted Knuckles.

"But that's impossible, you can't change the orbit like socks. Doesn't it mean the setting sun? That makes more sense," argued Rouge.

"It sure sounds fishy," Crack was seriously thinking for a once.

]There is more,[ he looked up and flew to the top of the pillar. ]It says here, where the monster is sleeping… well, approximately and it describes Lost valley and it's supposed to have a weakness.[

"Really?!" shouted all in unison.

"That would make our job a lot easier!" Crack happy jumped in the air.

]The text talks about a red stone on its chest, that is connected to its heart. Apparently, if we destroy it before the awakening we can kill it in one shot.[

"What we are waiting for then, let's go!" Crack rushed out.

"Stop, our light source!" shouted Rouge, following him.

Zilver flew after them. Only Knuckles hesitated for a few seconds. For some reason he had… very uneasy feeling. Like they overlooked something very important. Rouge had to climb, as she said the passage is too small for her to fly. Crack at the exit found a switch opening the secret passage. When they were back in the library, the sun almost set.

* * *

[Eclipse's house]

"What's with that big smile?" asked cooking Eclipse. Hedgehog was standing in the kitchen's doors having such big smile it could be used as a movie screen.

"No~ thing," intoned Silver.

"Spit it out, or no dinner for you." Eclipse looked good in a cooking apron. The words "I love fresh meat" seemed innocent unless you knew he was still-breathing-man-eating alien.

"Since you insist," Silver waved with the hand and a big, fluffy teddy bear with a big red ribbon around its neck tied back flew inside the kitchen. "I had no idea you have such sweet hobby."

Eclipse went pale. "H-H-How… W-Why did you… you…"

"Oh come one, it's no big deal." Silver took the bear into his hands.

"Don't touch it!" yelled Eclipse and quickly took it. "You will just mess Mr. Flutter's ribbon," he mumbled causing Silver to giggle. Eclipse stopped adjusting the ribbon of the bear. "Wait a-!" He used his chaos control to switch off the cooker and rushed to that room. Once he entered the attic he yelled at Silver: "How could you!" The bears were out of the order, sitting differently than before.

"Lady Rainbow belongs here and Miss Apple Pie was next to her, not above tomboy Raindash!" He was rearranging like everything as Silver couldn't help himself not to touch them or took them. Silver felt really bad right now, just like Darklings that gathered behind him. They were supposed to keep him out of this room.

"I'm sorry," said Silver after a while. He only wanted to tease him a bit.

Eclipse continued with cleaning while Silver was just standing not knowing what to do. After he was done, he walked away and when he was passing by Silver, he said: "The dinner will get cold." Silver close the door and the time during the dinner was silent and heavy.

Later in the night, Silver couldn't sleep so he sat on the roof and looked at the stars. He felt terrible. How could he be such idiot? It was obvious they were precious to him. "Ouch!" He yelled as a sharp pain in his shoulder brought him back to the reality. "Eclipse?"

The alien was standing beside him, frowning. Silver's quills went down. "I know, I know, I was an idiot. I'm really sorry, I won't touch them again."

Eclipse sat next to him and bumped him in the shoulder, but this time lightly. "No sweat. It's ok."

They sat there, gazing at the stars. "So, you know another me, huh?" started Eclipse.

"Kinda… It's some time I saw him and the time we spent together was pretty hectic."

"And how is his relationship with his bro?"

Silver jerked. How should he explain this? They are in such good terms here.

"Still want to kill each other, right?" Eclipse looked at him.

"Uh-oh."

"It figures," Eclipse lied down. "It was with us at the beginning too."

* * *

He was created as an ultimate answer to their ultimate problem. He was supposed to correct the mistake Black Doom did as not destroying Shadow the Hedgehog sooner. The rest of Black Arms consisted new commander Black Death, his troops and him. They recreated one minor lifeform to their image, creating Dark Arms.

Once the New Black comet reached the Earth's orbit, they were encountered by G.U.N. soldiers and Shadow the Hedgehog. He agreed to help G.U.N. to destroy the rest of his race. He wanted to kill the traitor, but it was still his brother. He tried to persecute him to join them, but he showed great resistance and hatred towards his own race, he had no choice but to eliminate him.

The fight was fierce and Eclipse had an upper hand at first, but Shadow, in the end, was victorious. The cursed humans planted a big bomb in the middle of the comet at the cost of their own lives. Gravely injured Black Death had no luck in deactivating the bomb so he ordered his soldiers to move unhatched Dark Arms into an escape pod and Eclipse too.

He was struggling and begging Black Death to stay and help him. Death's Eye took Eclipse into the ship and forced him to stay, piloting it to the safety. Once the bomb detonated, Black Death's Eye fell on the ground. Eclipse burst into tears and swore a revenge on his brother and the whole planet.

The landing was anything but soft and living there even more. Only four Dark Arms survived the harsh landing. From that time, he had to care for them, hide from the soldiers that continued to hunt them down while they were supposed to be a prey. During that time, he crossed path with Shadow on few occasions and was able to run from them.

But it had to come soon or later when he was unable to escape or defeat him. He collapsed using his body as a shield to protect exhausted Darklings. He expected death, but it did not come. Instead, he awoke in a building called a hospital. Shadow was in the same room waiting for him to wake up. Eclipse was surprised, shocked but deeply relieved when he saw Darklings alive and well.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

Shadow was only staring at him. "These days it's hard to get a decent opponent to fight with."

"What? Are you just playing with me?"

"Then gets stronger," with these words Shadow left the room. Eclipse took his words seriously and trained as hard as he could. Shadow introduced him to his arena and as the time passed he slowly… stopped trying to kill Shadow. Living on this planet changed him. He noticed the difference in living as hive-mind and as an individual creature.

* * *

"… So I kinda slowly started to live here," Eclipse ended his story.

"I'm glad," said Silver after a while. Eclipse of his world… he wondered if he will be able to change too. Will telling him this Eclipse's story help to overcome his hatred? "But how did you started to collect teddy bears?"

Eclipse jerked a bit. "Well…" he looked away, "… I got them for Darklings. They love them." He stood up and returned to the building. "I suggest you sleep! Tomorrow will be tough!"

That figures! Eclipse will give him even harsher training tomorrow. But Silver was glad he wasn't angry anymore. He as well returned to his room.

Eclipse did return to his room for a while, but he left to check if Silver was sleeping. Then he went to the attic. He left out one part of the story… he didn't want for him to know… for anyone to know… what happened during the time he was hunted. In the attic, all the bears looked new or old, but neither of them was torn… unlike one. It was hidden behind all of them and put in a secret small room behind wooden planks. It was really easy to miss it. Eclipse moved the wooden planks and took it out.

The plush bear looked awful. Its fur was missing at many places, had one torn eye and ear and one leg was half-torn-apart. He tightly hugged him. The bear was full of painful memories… too painful to bear… too deep to forget.

To be continued…

* * *

How'd like that? Were you surprised at least a bit? Eclipse can have such cute side of him. The finale is closing in! Please, leave a review or like if you enjoyed the story.


	7. Mouth of the unknown

Eclipse wasn't the only one who had restless sleep. Zilver was awake too. He was thinking about their discovery. The chance to kill Iblis was so close. There was no need to wait for its awakening and it had such big weakness. But to tell the truth, one more thing kept him awake. It was the Master Emerald. Its glow was like a fire to an owlet moth.

He had to be near, he wanted to touch it like before, but Knuckles has forbidden it. What for? Why? He was standing in front of it. Staring at its crystal clean surface. It was so hypnotizing. He touched it. The surge of energy filled him. His memories became so clear and his body recharged to max. He still couldn't remember faces of anyone he ever knew.

Picturing Silver's or Crack's face was no problem at all, so why? It was sometimes too, but he felt something strange… like someone's presence at the edge of his sensing. Just a glimpse that appears to disappear in the next moment. Is it because of the genesis portal?

"Who's there?!" Knuckles' voice echoed thru the library. "Zilver?" He came closer to the hedgehog holding an old lantern. "Did you touch it?"

]No,[ he lied. ]I only couldn't sleep so I came here to look for more clues, even if we know its weak point…[ Zilver shrugged.

"Yes, I know. Even I have a trouble to sleep, but we all should get some rest. We agreed to confront Iblis as soon as possible."

Zilver nodded and went to his room. Knuckles stayed with the Master Emerald longer, inspecting it. Since Zilver and the others came, he had this ominous feeling. He thought it's because of the Iblis, but know… it felt it's a different kind of a danger. He touched the emerald, but he didn't feel any difference. 'Maybe I'm too paranoid, lots of had happened recently. I have to take a rest too.' He left to his room.

* * *

[Approaching Lost Valey]

The next morning they discussed their plan and sent others a message. In a matter of few hours, they were on the course to the Lost valley. Shadow was again piloting his aircraft and looked gloomier than normally. Rouge asked him about his gloomy mood, but he had no answer for her.

Crack was a bit surprised about Eclipse as he got brief information about Black Arms and his relationship with Shadow. He found out his memory file regarding Black Arms' race was damaged just like some other. He left their digital copy with professor Eggman, that will try to recover them. He as well was unsure how he can have these data. He sure hoped that recovering his whole memory will help him to understand it.

Knuckles stayed on the island with the Master Emerald and wished them a luck and a safe journey. Silver was sitting by the window, watching the landscape that peeked thru the clouds. When he got the message about such big discovery he was happy. Yet the closer they got to the valley the more nervous he was.

Did he get enough strong? What about the others? Are they nervous? He glimpsed on them a few times. Sonic was sitting, rocking his leg and listening to some music while his extreme gear was next to him. Crack was playing with Darklings and making funny faces at them. Silver giggled. Eclipse was watching them, but was tense too. Rouge looked like she was thinking and calm.

Zilver was as well watching the landscape, but he didn't have that happy expression like before. He was more serious. Shadow was piloting so Silver had no idea what kind of expression he has. But knowing him, he looks broody and serious.

"Get ready for landing, we will arrive in ten minutes," said Shadow to the microphone after another hour.

Silver slightly jerked. He started to get the feeling he hasn't done enough. He bit his lip. 'Oh, come on! I don't have a time for this! Remember why you are here! I'm not here alone!' He tried to encourage himself with a little to no effect. He really hated when he was losing a confidence. 'You have beaten big alien monster, and fought world eater, or even beaten man-eating pollen! What can be hard on beating one fire-breathing destruction spreading gigantic monster?'

Silver made an awful smile while watching outside to hide it. Yup, that sure worked. The aircraft touched the ground and everyone went outside. They landed at the edge of the valley. Flying any deeper was risky, as there were often sudden gusts of the wind or strong side winds or just bad wind or like now lots of thunderclouds hovering above their heads like a guillotine.

The path to the valley was narrow and surrounded by tall stone walls. The wind was howling and pressing against them. Most parts of the valley were just a stone pillars or masses or some dead trees. Knuckles mentioned that it used to be a nice place, but an earthquake some hundred years ago opened a hole leading to a poisonous gas, that killed everything. The gas was a long time gone, but the ground became so polluted that nothing could regrow there.

"Let's go," said Shadow and they followed him. No one was talking. There was nothing to talk about anyway. The sound of far away thunder announced a closing storm. Just what's they needed. The path led them toward stone walls. The walls were steep, but no one had any problem climbing or in a case of a robot and certain psychos it was a matter of few thoughts.

The clouds above their heads become even darker and heavier. Silver noticed that Rouge didn't fly but climbed. It sure confused him as she is a natural flier. But he decided not to ask her about it. At the top of the wall, they could see pillars and masses that ran in a spiral to the center.

]It's there![ Zilver pointed at the center. ]Iblis is sleeping in that place![

Silver gulped and Crack poked him a bit between the ribs. Silver hedgehog shivered. "Cool down, you can fight," whispered Crack to him.

Silver squinted. "You caught a virus or downloaded good manners upgrade?"

"I was just trying to do something different for a change. Don't get used to it," Crack closed his left fist pointing it toward Silver. The hedgehog smiled and made bro fist with him.

"Thanks," Silver felt a bit better. Rouge observed them with a smile when she jerked.

'Why now?' She looked back. The pain she felt came from the scapula. She looked in front of her and made a sad smile. "It happened among the stone walls after all," she mumbled.

"Is everything ok?" asked Silver.

"Yes, no need to worry. Let's continue."

Silver had this strange feeling something is not right. Seeing frowning Shadow was normal. Zilver was always serious too, but seeing Sonic being quite, not joking around or running here and there was just so weird. Something was in the air, and he wasn't talking about the extreme gear. After some walking, they arrived at a narrow bridge.

Sonic came closer to the edge and looked down. There was a deep chasm. The drops of sweat appeared on his forehead and he almost jumped back as he thought for a short moment, he saw a familiar figure lying down there. The unwanted memories resurfaced as he slowly walked forward, followed by the rest.

* * *

"Sonic!" shouted older blue hedgehog. "Where you are going?!"

"None of your business, old fart!" shouted teenage blue hedgehog, that was running with an extreme gear. He put his goggles and fingerless gloves on.

"Sonic!" old hedgehog had no chance in catching up with him, but he still tried. "Sonic!" He called him, but to no avail, he didn't even look back.

"Professor Charles!" called him his assistant. "Was that…?" It was a dog Mobian wearing white T-shirt, shorts of navy-blue color and sandals. In his hand, he had a book. The old hedgehog sighed and said: "Yes, it is."

The professor was wearing the similar outfit as his assistant but in more brown and beige colors.

"What ungrateful child, after all, these years you took care of him instead of his late parents," he mumbled.

"It's alright, let's prepare for our research."

"Yes, professor."

Together they entered building behind them that was Sonic's home for more than six years now and Charles' study in one.

* * *

The memory slowly faded away. As they came closer to the center of the spiral, Silver was sure Rouge can't fly. She on the other hand shown no need for a help and frankly speaking, he was afraid to ask her. He didn't want her to be embarrassed. The tense atmosphere among them was now even more… tense. Silver had really bad feeling about it.

]It's here,[ said Zilver, when they arrived at the center. Before them was a mouth of the cave. Silver bristled and he wasn't alone. The cave was shouting "just dare to enter and I'll swallow you up". Zilver and Shadow made the first step toward it at the same time, resulting in simultaneous glare.

'They must view each other as rivals,' noted Silver, 'Let's hope, they can cooperate later.'

Everybody slowly entered. The path took them to crossroads.

"Now what?" asked Crack and made a quick scan. Before them were seven paths. "Hack it! My scan can't see more than ten meters ahead!"

"Which means-" started Silver, but Shadow finished the sentence: "We have to split."

"Which means everyone of us has to take one path," added Rouge and looked at each of the tunnels. Sonic looked around too and Cregar with Cyzer flew higher to see if there is another way. They found none.

]Let's go.[

"Wait!" shouted Silver. "I don't think it's a good idea to separate like that."

"So what?" asked Shadow angrily.

"We don't know what we can encounter."

"Silvie is right on this one." Crack tried another scan but hasn't got any better result. "Let's make at least two cell teams."

]The monster is asleep right now. It has no way to know about us![ Zilver's voice sounded lot angrier than ever. He must have been desperate to end this.

"But…"

]I can keep up with all of you a mind link, so if anything happens we will know it immediately.[

Silver's quills went down. Zilver didn't wait for anyone's response and flew into the closest tunnel. Shadow did the same.

"C'mon, you scaredy-hog," said Sonic jokingly and choose one of the tunnels.

"Boys," sighed Rouge. "I guess we all are just a bit on the edge." She nodded toward Silver and took one passage.

Eclipse and his Dark army take the furthest tunnel, leaving Crack and Silver.

"Well, we should get going." Crack made a few steps to his tunnel of the choice when he stopped for a bit and looked back over his shoulder. "Watch yar back, I have this funny feeling there is something here watching us."

"Yeah, thanks." It sure didn't help Silver to feel any better, but he was glad for his concern. So Silver was left alone with only one path to take. "Oh, crud, I wish we all stayed together, but I guess Zilver is right. The monster still sleeps and we have a plenty of time to beat it." With these words, he had a little confidence in, he started to walk.

To be continued…

* * *

Hello, long time no see. Sorry for late update, I would update it yesterday, but I noticed I lost the next chapter! I was so nervous if I can recover it (as it is my most favorite one too) I decided to postpone this chapter till I recover it... or in the worst case, I would rewrite it. And as you can guess, I recovered it so I can upload this one.

Ps. Did I mention the "Silver story" is trilogy? If no, here it is. The first part was Silver Darkness, the second one is this story (Silver path) and from the third part I have quite a bit of already ready. I sure hope you will enjoy it too.


	8. The pain

Silver was walking and constantly looking around, expecting some sort of danger. The stone walls were warm, but he felt cold. At few occasions, he got scared by dripping water or he stopped to listen as he thought he heard someone's footsteps.

'It's just my imagination,' he ensured himself for like fifth time already. He had no idea how much time passed or how the others were doing. Zilver didn't send any message, neither Silver was able to contact him. 'The cave is ending…' Before him was a reddish light. He slowly approached it and covered his eyes as the light blinded him.

He gasped… the scenery… was magnificent. He entered a big cavern that was illuminated by red glowing crystals. In the middle was a pond and in its center was a small island with a big stone structure that looked like a twisted monster. Silver flew higher to see more of this place.

'Where are the others?' He flew alongside the stone wall to look for another entrance. 'Could I be the only one choosing the right path?' He wasn't sure if he is supposed to be happy or not. Because if that's the case… He stopped, hovering in the air… That would mean…

]Welcome.[

Silver shrieked a bit and turned. "Zilver don't scare-?!" Hedgehog's eyes widened. In front of him was levitating Zilver he knew… but he sure didn't have purple tips of his quills, claw-like hands, and feet or red sclera with yellow eyes. Silver was hit by the dark purple energy ball. He flew few meters before he gained control over his fall.

"Zilver, what happened to you?"

]Nothing serious, he only provided me a host body.[

"Host body? Who are you?"

"Who is he?" said another voice with the same creepy tone. Silver looked back and saw a black and purple mass forming into creepy hedgehog that shared many features with Zilver but looked more like Shadow. "I'm Mephiles the Dark."

]You can call me Zephiles the Dark.[

Silver flew back, so he could have both of them in his field of vision. 'What happened? Isn't that creepy hedgehog a-!' Zilver… Zephiles was suddenly before him.

]Worrying about something?[ Silver fell back, but Zil-Zephiles used Zilver's psychic powers to catch him. Silver screamed. ]Is it painful? You don't need to worry, all the pain will soon disappear.[

Silver was SO worried. He tried to resist, but his power was too much. He sure got stronger after powering up by Master Emerald.

"Bring here the traveler from the different dimension," said Mephiles and walked toward the pond.

'W-What? How they know?'

They descended to him. Mephiles lifted his hand and from the water emerged four big purple crystals. Silver stopped struggling. Inside of these... were Rouge, Sonic, Eclipse with his Dark Arms and Shadow. Everyone had painful expression.

Silver gasped, but didn't stop in trying to free himself.

]Stop resisting.[

"What do you want?" asked Silver.

"To purify this world from devastation."

]To call upon the flame sword of judication![

"Return it to its origin..."

]… to correct old misbegin.[

Silver sure didn't like how they were finishing each other sentences. "You mean… burning everything into an ash?"

"Everything started with a sparkle…"

]… and everything shall end in a darkle.[

"You are crazy!" Silver pushed even more. "I won't… let you…" He felt Zephiles' grip was weakening. "… do it!"

"Yes, you will, and you will help us!" Mephiles turned into more shadow-mass-like-mist-slime-whatever and jumped toward Silver. Silver hedgehog got tangled in it and felt intense pain.

"Let me show you the eternal pain," said Mephiles' voice in his head as he was taking a control. Silver shrieked.

* * *

[Rouge's past]

Female bat in all black suit jerked.

"What's up, Rouge, feeling nervous?" said male bat next to her. He was smiling and wearing a similar spy-like outfit like Rouge. His eyes were green.

"D-Diebe?"

"Yes, it's me. Is something wrong?"

Rouge looked around her. They were on the roof of a famous museum that put a big jewel on the view. "Ye- I mean, no. It's okay. I must have a doze off."

"I'm sure this action will keep you awake." He came closer to the sky window. "The security system is pretty tough." He took a small pocket computer, plug it into the system and started to hack it.

"D-Diede, I think we should-" she came to him.

"What? You want to back off?" he almost barked at her, as he never saw her like that.

"Yes-No, I just… I just have this terrible feeling something will go horribly wrong!" She almost shouted. Was everything she just saw just a dream? Was it all an illusion?

"What could go wrong?" He didn't stop typing. "We planned this for a whole month. We have all the data and we will steal it tonight!" He looked at her, as the small computer was loading his custom program into the system. "And after this night, we can finally be together."

Rouge blushed a bit. She knew he promised her that after this job they will have a wedding. He wanted this jewel to be at her ring. She clenched her fists. What she was thinking? Like some stupid dream can scare her! "Sorry, guess even I can be vulnerable sometimes."

"That's why I'm here to protect you," he looked at her and made her favorite big smile. It put her to ease. The computer made beep sound announcing it finished its job. "Let's go, we have fifteen minutes before the security system goes back online."

She used a diamond knife to make a hole in the window and they slowly descended. Unfortunately, their target wasn't here, they had to go a bit further as it was located in the safe during nights. They quickly went toward it.

"It's here," whispered Diebe to her. Vault was right in front of them. It was big and had a thick steel door. It had a digital panel, so Diebe again connected his computer to do the job. Rouge looked around the area. There were no guards as the system was supposed to be unbreakable.

What a joke, as these two figured it a weakness in a mere week. Or frankly speaking, it was Diebe the Bat, the computer genius, that noticed it. Together, they were unbeatable thief duo, stealing the jewels, gold and other treasures from all over the world. She wandered around. They still had nine minutes of time, so what's harm it could do?

"Is that?" She came closer to the pedestal at which a necklace with rainbow colored stone was placed. It was named Rainbow depth and looking at the stone felt like looking at the depths of the rainbow sea. She actually heard about it, but getting this jewel was more challenging so she forgot about it. 'Let's take home a souvenir.' Her kick made a quick job on the glass cover. "Come to the mommy," she said jokingly and took it. At the moment, the alarm sounded. "What!?" The red lights were everywhere.

"Rouge!" she heard his voice, as he ran towards her. She hid the necklace behind her and stood in front of the pedestal. "What's happening?" He tucked the computer into his pocket.

"I don't know, I thought the system was down!" She clenched the necklace and it felt like it's burning her.

"Dang it! Let's fly!" he cursed.

Rouge bit her lip as she followed him. If she just didn't touch this stupid necklace. She clenched it in her palm even more.

"Watch out!" Diebe pushed her away, as from the left hallway flew three security bots.

"They are mine!" shouted Rouge, angry at herself for botching their big job like that. She at least wanted to release some steam on them. Her kicks were powerful and soon the trio ended up like fresh candidates for a junkyard.

"Quickly!" shouted Diebe as fighting wasn't his forte.

They flew toward the window and were about to leave when a laser hit Diebe in the back, piercing him. He screamed and tears were flowing from his eyes.

"DIEBE!" screamed Rouge and she tried to reach him. A bunch of flying security bots started to shoot, hitting Rouge's left shoulder at the moment she almost grabbed him. She pulled back, screaming in pain and unable to control her flying trajectory properly. His body fell on the floor, making a loud noise.

"You are under an arrest," said preprogrammed voice from robots' speakers.

"Hold it there!" shouted, this time, a policeman that was leading dozen of others. Rouge gritted her teeth and jumped, using robots as platforms. "Don't let the thief escape!" Policemen started to shoot and one of them hit Rouge in the root of her wing. She loudly screamed and she barely made it out of the window.

The building was surrounded by cars and all the exits were sealed. Flying robots were immediately behind her and the pain in her wing prevented her from fighting them, so she had to run away. Her heart was beating fast. She rushed toward the edge and when the robots were just a few meters behind her, she jumped toward one.

Her kick crushed its front panel and made it malfunction. Rouge sat at it and did her best to control its fall near the policemen.

"Watch out!" they ran away and Rouge jumped down before she could be caught in an explosion caused by the collision of the robot and a car. "She took the bike!"

She rushed full speed ahead not slowing down.

Soon she had pursuers at her tail, but she knew a lot about this city so she was able to shake them off in the back alleys. The pain in her wing was getting worse. She had enough energy to return to their hideout, take the unnecessary things and leave.

The next day… was the worst in her life. Her wing got permanently damaged resulting in her inability to fly long distances as she used to. But that was bearable, she still had her kicks and brain. And any machine could help her to fly… but… Diebe… he was taken by police… well, she could bust him out of the prison in no time… if he… would be alive.

The newspapers said the laser hit him in the spine and as he fell on the floor the hit to his head caused internal bleeding to the brain. In the hospital, they tried to save him… but ultimately failed. Rouge was devastated. He was the first person she ever trusted… If it wasn't for the cursed rainbow… she still clenching in her hand.

* * *

Silver was shivering. "Wha-Wha… was that?" he couldn't speak clearly.

"Nothing, just a taste of her pain. Poor woman, one mistake and she lost everything. It appears the security system had a backup system operating on an old principal of weight detection, that wasn't recorded in any of the materials the bat's thieves got."

]The crystal made her revisit her pain… in an endless cycle.[

That meant she will be seeing this memory over and over again. Silver was furious. How could they do that?

"Look at her."

Silver looked and her body was turning darker and darker.

]Her despair took over her. She lost any hope.[

Mephiles looked at Shadow as his body was engulfed in dark mist. "This one seems to be keeping an intense pain inside. Let's leave him for the last." He looked at Sonic. "Yes, this one will do for now."

Silver was again forced to see his pain.

* * *

[Sonic's past]

"Hey, Sonic, where you wanna go?" asked extreme gear rider sitting on the ground. He looked like a bear.

Sonic winked few times. "Anywhere, just be fast!" he jumped at his extreme gear and the board shined with a blue glow.

"Yahoo!" shouted rest of the gear gang Sky rulers the Sonic was the leader of. They jumped at their gears and rushed to Sonic, that was already ahead. They flew into the city causing panic and traffic accidents. Soon the police cars tried to stop them, but they soon got into accidents themselves.

"What a wild ride!" shouted a green Hawk named Jet. He was de facto Sonic's right-hand man.

Sonic step on it and the ride continued till late night. Few hours before the sunrise Sonic returned home. He was sneaking as he didn't want to wake his uncle.

"Want a late dinner or early breakfast?" asked him a gentle voice.

Sonic jerked. In the door to the kitchen, he recognized uncle's silhouette.

"You won't ask where I was?" he asked in a bad mood.

Older blue hedgehog sighed. "You know what I think about it."

"And you know my answer!" shouted Sonic and ran into his room.

Chuck wanted to say something, but he didn't. He knew it was no use. Later that morning Sonic was loudly sleeping, when his uncle visited his room. The room was full of extreme gear merchandise from posters and toys to his own board. The floor was littered with socks and papers. Chuck pick one paper to see an unfinished design for such board.

He put it on Sonic desk and looked at the family photograph where they all were a happy family. The frame was on the toilet table next to Sonic's bed. His brother Jules, his wife Bernadette and their son Sonic. It looked like they will be happy for the rest of their lives, but… live is cruel too. It happened on Sonic's tenth birthday, they were heading to the theme park but they got into a big accident.

Sonic was the only survivor. During that time, he was consciousness and had to look at the faces of his death parents and the blood running everywhere. And to make it worst, both of his legs were fractured at many places that not even the best doctors could fix. Sonic… lost not just his family but his speed too… all at the day that was supposed to be the happiest one.

Charles the Hedgehog, known more for his nickname Chuck, took him and raised him as his own son. But even so, he couldn't replace Sonic's real parents neither to heal the deep wound in his heart. Sonic became the member and later a leader of extreme gear gang only because he desired to get back his speed.

Frankly speaking, his speed did gradually return as he was able to run faster than most Mobians and people alike, but he never reached the speed of the sound again and any attempt only resulted in sharp pain and hospitalization, not to mention he could run only for a short time. Chuck wasn't a doctor and it made him angry he can't do anything for his brother's son. He put the photograph back and left the room. In the kitchen, he left a breakfast.

"Professor Charles," called him his assistant.

"Yes, I know, I'm coming," replied older hedgehog.

It was a late afternoon when Sonic woke up and went down. He ate the cold food. Later he rushed out on his extreme gear to meet up with a gang.

Yesterday they agreed to tackle a Rainbow Canyon. The name actually sounds friendly, but the terrain is extremely dangerous. The gusts of the wind are unpredictable and strong. The landslides are almost on daily basis and the stones are slippery. The canyon got its name after stone the shine with seven colors when they are exposed to the sunlight. Wich is kinda rare as the sun has a problem to get to them, touching them only for a couple of minutes per day.

They just arrived at the beginning of more than 30 kilometers long canyon. For extreme gear rider such distance is a matter of few minutes, but here it's a zigzag path full of obstacles and dead-ends making it more like a maze.

"Let's roll!" shouted Sonic, he put on a helmet to cover his face and was first one to enter.

"Hey, boss, I heard there are supposed to be some bookworms doin' some research!" shouted Jet the Hawk, that caught up with him.

"Yeah, so what?"

"Just sain' the news talked about some rare flower to grow here."

"Like I care!" Sonic sped up. "Yahoo!"

Soon Sonic heard some screams behind him as someone was unable to avoid an obstacle or fell from the board. He sure wasn't stopping for them. Meanwhile, some kilometers ahead was a team of so-called bookworms working.

"Professor, look at this!" shouted a man to the radio as he was wearing a special suit that looked like it was made for space traveling.

"Magnificent!" answered professor and he bent down a bit. They were looking at a fragile flower with bright red petals. "It's it! The Red hope!" Mobian almost whispered that name. This flower was not just rare, it was crazy rare. It could bloom only at the place that had crystal clear air and given this place reputation it was a miracle it not just rooted but also bloomed here!

"Let's take samples!" Other Mobian went for a special container that will keep the flower intact and filters any pollution in the air.

"What-!" Professor looked above as a shadow fell on the flowers. In the next moment, he was pushed back by extreme gear board as its rider couldn't completely avoid a collision.

"Professor!" shouted his assistant and ran toward him.

The rider was no one else then Sonic, that got ahead of the gang. He looked scared, but he tried to catch the falling Mobian in the suit. Unfortunately, their hands missed each other by few millimeters and the man fell into a deep and narrow gap.

The other Mobian looked over the edge and yelled something. Sonic had no chance to hear him clearly as his voice was distorted by the helmet. Sonic did the one thing he was good at – he rode away on his gear, not looking back or providing any help.

Later that night he was getting nervous. His uncle wasn't home and he couldn't stop thinking about the accident. The next morning… he wanted to die. The news said the Mobian researcher that has fallen down was no other than his uncle…. And he died in there before any help could come. A rescue team spent few hours to get there and another two to get him out, but it was too late.

Sonic ran away from the home and no one knew where he went. His name resurfaced a few years later when he became a part of underworld illegal extreme gear races. The death or permanent injuries were common as they could be.

* * *

"You!" Silver growled. He hated them for showing him their darkest secrets and pain. His body glowed even more.

"What's the use of fighting?" asked Mephiles, that was taking over his mind and body.

]He is rather persistent, isn't he?[

"Yes, too much for my tastes. Let's show him something more."

Zephiles looked at Eclipse and his Dark Arms and a new story unfolded in Silver's head. He screamed.

* * *

[Eclipse's past]

Eclipse jerked. 'Where-?!' He looked around. He was in some old, abandoned building with Dark Arms sleeping next to him. He heard steps so he quickly woke them up.

"Keep searching!" shouted G.U.N. soldier.

'They!' Eclipse was observing them from the higher floor. "Quickly, this way." Dark Arms followed him. They soon found stairs leading up and ran there as the ground floor was flooded by soldiers.

"The Black Arms' scums can't be far! Don't overlook any possible hiding place!" shouted their field commander.

"Yes, sir!"

Before Eclipse entered the rooftop, he looked around. The helicopters were circling around the building and heavy, black clouds were above them, making everything look darker. Eclipse gestured them to quickly but quietly follow him. He noticed they were tired. He as well was exhausted, but they had to survive, no matter what.

They used shadows to their advantage. They hid bellow some wooden structure, that used to store water as he could tell from the smell. From three sides it was a long way to another building. Eclipse made quick glimpse over the fourth edge before he had to move back. Below it was a river and the building was standing just a few meters from the shore.

'What now?' Flying away was out of the question and not just because of the helicopters. Swimming was possible, but the current looked strong. Eclipse didn't have enough energy to swim with all of them. Not to mention Black Arms weren't naturally born swimmers. But if they wanted to survive, they had no other choice, they had to do it as he noticed they had some Chaos Control radar, that could pinpoint their actual and even later location if he tried to warp away.

Suddenly a ray of light blinded them from the side. "Uargh!" yelled Eclipse. "Quickly!" He took them to his arms and ran to the edge.

"Die, you stupid alien!" shouted the pilot and released a rocket, that hit the roof behind them. The explosion catapulted Eclipse and Darklings in the air. Their screams filled the air. All of them fell into the water. Eclipse felt a sharp pain in his back but had no time to be concerned as the current was taking him away. He could only think about his Darklings.

He got above the water level to get some air and look for them. "Cregal! Cyzer! Blurk! Rhygenta!" He was calling them unable to see them. Beside him the water was cut by a laser, so he had to dive. Many shots rained around him and one grazed him in the shoulder. 'I have to get out!' He called Dark Arms by telepathy in hope to learn their positions.

The current took them away from soldiers as they were lighter than Eclipse and weren't fighting with it. He swam after them with lasers constantly landing all around him. From the heavy clouds started to rain. When he reached the shore, he had no idea where he was. He got out of the water completely exhausted, but he got away from the soldiers. At least for a few minutes.

'I have to…' thoughts about his family kept him going, overcoming his limits. He tried to contact them thru telepathy, but they were not responding. They couldn't… they couldn't be death! Not like Black Death… not like the rest of the Black Arms… he couldn't be the only survivor! "Blurk!" he heard something from the trash bin. He heard a slurping sound that only Blurk makes during a meal. "Blurk!"

"Meow!" hissed a stray cat that jumped from the bin and ran away. The roaring of a motor reminded Eclipse he had to get away. He heard human soldiers as they were getting closer. He was stumbling over his own legs. His vision was blurry and he had no idea what to do.

He constantly called Darklings with his telepathy. He tripped over stone tile and fell. He was panting, gasping for cold air. The rain drops were merciless hitting him. He got up.

"There he is!" shouted soldier that appeared behind him. He was alone. "Die, you alien scum!" He took an aim with a laser gun. It all happened in a sec. Eclipse survival instinct kicked in. He mustered his strength, jumped on him and punched him in the face, knocking him down.

"This is Mike 2. Mike 14, what's happened?" he heard another voice coming from a communicator. The soldiers will be here any minute, he had to run away, leaving his hated enemy breathing. He ran deeper and noticed a steam coming from a manhole cover. He picked it up, made his way down and put it back.

He fell on all four and had to catch his nose as the smell was unbearable and disgusting. He heard silent steps of many small animals. Food! The rats ran from him, but still few of them ended up in his stomach. They had a little nutrition value and terrible taste, but it was better than nothing.

After he recovered a bit of his strength he continued his search. He started to suspect he can't reach his Arms because they are too far away or unconscious. He wasn't thinking about their possible death… or more like he forced himself not to think that way.

He spent another hour calling them and running in the tunnels. On many occasions, he had to backtrack his steps to find out he got lost. With every second he hated this place more and more, cursing it and promising cruel revenge. Thankfully, no soldier found him yet as his strength was running low. He felt sleepy.

'I have to find them. I can't stop!' But his body refused to hear his pleas. He had to use a wall as a support to make few steps. In the shadows before him, he recognized something small. He sped up a bit. It had the size of his Dark Arms. When he was few steps away, he tripped and fell down. His body ached so much he didn't feel the new pain in the forehead. He raised his head and smiled, but it soon disappeared as it wasn't Dark Arms but some kind of human toy.

It was torn, part of its surface was missing and the inner material was leaking. All he could tell it looked like one of these animals he had met. It was called a bear if he wasn't mistaken. Tears started to flow down. He reached for it, pulling it closer. Eclipse was gifted with one more ability; to "smell" emotions his target felt. This way he could tell what moment was the best for the attack or defense, or how to throw them off the balance.

This was obviously non-breathing creature, but the emotion he smelled was unusually strong – it was scared and lost, just like Eclipse now. Its spread arms looked like they wanted to hug someone. Eclipse pulled the plush bear to himself, tightly hugged it, curled up and finally gave to the sleep.

After hours, he woke up, refreshed and with a clearer head. He put the bear on the ground and made few steps, then he turned back and took it with himself, holding it with his tail. Under another manhole cover, he listened and picked any smell of scents or emotions to explore the area. No one was there. He quickly got out and hid in shadows. Then he climbed the tall building to get a better view.

Since it was evening, as he could see some stars and the sky was clearer and dark blue, he must have slept for more than 6 hours. This discovery shocked him, but he was determinate to find whereabouts of his Dark Arms no matter what. He carefully observed the roof before he continued. He immediately hid in another shadow and sent a mental signal, soon he got a response. "Dark Arms!" he shouted happily and covered his mouth as his own loud voice scared him.

They were alive and near! So they escaped from the water! Eclipse looked in their direction as they were now located in the middle of green patch humans call a park. He sniffed, determining G.U.N. soldiers positions. 'Good, they are enough far away.' Eclipsed climbed down, and ran toward them. The streets were empty as citizens were evacuated even before they reached the city.

That caused him a big food supply problem but he anyway had no time to hunt a prey as they were constantly running from these stubborn soldiers. How could such weak race be so troublesome was beyond his understanding. When he had a big open space before him, he decided to go down the manhole to increase his success.

It took him longer than he wanted, but once he reached the park, he picked up the speed. "Dark Arms," he called them in a low voice. He ran toward old and mostly torn down pavilion that had a hole in its base. It was too small for Eclipse, but for Darklings it was perfect.

Their meeting was full of tears and smiles. Everyone had a lot of bruises, but none of their limbs were missing. And what more, they were alive. Teddy bear, Eclipse was holding till now, made them a lot curious and they liked it. "Let's move on before they will find us."

They had to move to safer position. Along the way, Eclipse hunted down some stray animals or found human food. It wasn't in its raw and breathing form but it provided them enough nutrition to continue. He noted these humans know how to provide a lot of various kinds of food with different tastes.

He did hate them, but this detail caught his interest. He decided to explore it more at a later date. He as well avoided entering manhole as he noticed some soldiers were sent there. They were able to avoid them till late night when Eclipse met Shadow in the second big park in the city.

"So, we meet again. I see you survived," said Shadow.

Eclipse cursed him as this area was relatively deserted with only a few units of soldiers. He planned to hunt them down and have a proper meal. Seeing his half-brother, that massacred his race made him furious. He was sick of running and hiding. It was now or never.

"Die!" shouted Eclipse and jumped toward the black hedgehog. He avoided Eclipse's straight attack and kicked him in the response. The alien rolled back and landed on all four. "Blurk! Rest of you scatter!" Rectangular Dark Arm rushed toward him giving him the power of invincible blue armor. Shadow went on the defensive, avoiding or blocking his attacks.

"Why won't you fight?" shouted Eclipse sure of his victory. "Is it because I block your Chaos Control ability?" He rushed toward him, but the hedgehog jumped up and Eclipse ran into a tree, breaking it. Blurk left his body as his power reached its time limit. "Cyzer!" shouted Eclipse calling his eel-like wisp.

"No, you won't!" Shadow activated his boots and used spin-attack on Black Arms' wisp.

"You jerk!" yelled Eclipse and attacked Shadow, without utilizing Cyzer's laser power, as he was knocked out. Even with blocking Shadow's Chaos Control ability was Eclipse unable to got a proper upper hand in the combat. Cregar flew to him granting him pair or wings and greater mobility. "I'll tear you apart!" Eclipse gained height, but Shadow's spin dash sent him down and the landing wasn't exactly the softies one.

Cregar separated from his body. Eclipse stood up and barely blocked Shadow's punches before he broke his defense by kick powered up by his power boots. Rhygenta was running toward him, ready to give him her power, however, Shadow caught her and tossed her away.

"Enough!" Eclipse punched Shadow in the face, but the difference in their strength and experiences was obvious. The alien was attacking with all his power he had left. Putting everything into every single punch or kick, but Shadow almost effortlessly avoided it. Black hedgehog hit him in the stomach, sending him away. Eclipse crashed backward into the tree. From his throat came painful scream.

He fell on the ground barely able to stand. Darklings gathered in one place around now conscious Cyzer. Shadow looked their way. Eclipse mustered the last bits of his power. "Shadow!" he shouted while running toward him. Black hedgehog was surprised by his speed, however, he was still able to avoid the hit even if it scratched him a bit. Shadow punched him in the side, pushing him toward Darklings.

Above them appeared helicopters and shined at Eclipse ray of light. He heard them talking. He stood on his knees, covering his wisp with his body and hugging them. This is the end for them. He failed… He failed his master… He failed in his revenge… he failed everyone…

"Chaos-" He lost control over Shadow's Chaos Control ability. "- Blast!" The green light engulfed them and everything disappeared.

* * *

"Oh, how painful, he tried so many times, yet he ultimately failed," said Mephiles and his influence over Silver's mind got significantly stronger.

"… he didn't… die…" muttered Silver in a low voice.

]Let's not forget the black hedgehog,[ Zephiles pointed at Shadow.

"Of course."

* * *

[Shadow's past]

"That's him?" asked small Mobian child. Shadow winked few times. He felt like he was inside of a strange dream that felt so real. Too much for his tastes.

"Let's welcome him, alright?" nursery teacher smiled.

"Okay," shouted kids happily.

Shadow was around four years old and this was his first visit in the kindergarten. He didn't like being among them, but Maria wished for it so he did it for her. It only took him a few days to get into a trouble.

"Fake hedgehog!" shouted one kid at him, as he told them he was artificially created.

"Faker!" shouted another and soon the rest of the children joined it. "You don't belong here!"

Shadow screamed and hit the main bully. Being called fake made him totally furious. How could they? Maria told him he belongs to this world!

"Stop it!" shouted kindergarten teacher and was separating them. The boy was crying like crazy while Shadow was growling and trying to hit him even more. Gerald Robotnik was called and he had to apologize for Shadow's actions. Soon after that, Shadow was sent to another kindergarten and instructed to never hit another child.

He never opened to another Mobian or person ever again. He never played with them or took part in social activities. But when he was talking with Maria he lied and made it look like he was having fun. Gerald was saddened by this fact, but remain silent. He tried to convince Shadow to trust others a bit more, which Shadow refused.

"I hate them! You and Maria are the only ones I can trust!" With tears in his eyes, he ran to his room. While this words made Gerald happy it caused him a lot of worries. In the last year of kindergarten, there came new kid, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Who knows what made Shadow so attracted toward him, being it his open personality, his speed or a knack for causing troubles, but he soon started to get closer to him… and by getting closer I mean constantly fighting with him and causing, even more, problems. Gerald could tell Shadow isn't lying in describing his time spent with this other hedgehog.

Shadow was finally able to meet someone he could trust. From that time, he stopped thinking about it, as his granddaughter condition was slowly worsening. She was strong and kept an optimistic attitude. When Shadow learned Sonic lost his parents in a tragic accident on his 10th birthday, he felt he can relate… a bit.

But it took some more years before Shadow decided to tell Sonic he was created in a laboratory for the purpose of finding a cure for a rare disease. The day started nicely. It was a spring and the air was full of fresh scent as the night before was raining. Shadow was a fifteen years old and attending middle school.

He took his rocket shoes he got for his fifth birthday (technically speaking his second one). With them, he was able to compete with Sonic in running, but after his return from the hospital, he was never the same. He stopped joking and was keeping everything to himself. Actually, after the return Sonic spent almost a year in a wheelchair, then he went recuperating somewhere so he wasn't attending the school. So when he returned after another half of the year he had to use crutches to walk. Shadow had no idea how to… comfort him or talk to him, so he only silently watched.

He as well witnessed how was Sonic bullied after his return to the school. For some time, Shadow had no idea this was happening as he was in a different class. Not to mention he had no idea how to talk with him so he avoided him a bit. When he mustered enough determination to speak with him, he saw the bullies taking his crutches he needed to walk.

Shadow got so furious he sent all of them to the hospital for few weeks, which resulted in his contemporary expelling for two months. Gerald wasn't happy about it, but he didn't scold Shadow. They had a parent to child conversation, where Gerald asked Shadow to control his temper a bit more. He explained violation isn't an answer to everything.

In the end, he lied Maria about his expelling, making it look like he got two months internship in some science department. Maria was happy and that all that mattered to him. Unfortunately, after this incident, he hadn't chance to talk with Sonic. His uncle took him to another city, where he was supposed to get another treatment. Shadow didn't know the details but it seemed Sonic was born with unique legs' bone and muscle structures that allowed him running at the speed of the sound. His legs were shattered during the accident and doctors fixed his legs, but the unique structure was permanently damaged. Resulting in a slow recovery and having to learn how to walk again.

With Sonic gone Shadow had no friend there. He got into a lot of fights, especially with bullies which resulted in lots of punishments. He never talked about it with Maria. But lately, he was getting the feeling he shouldn't lie to her so much. Wasn't he hurting her? What if she finds out? Will she hate him? Thinking about it terrified him. No, if he will tell her how disgusting humans and Mobians can be, she will he sad! He has to keep her smiling no matter what!

All the thinking about the past years made Shadow so lost he even forgot he got on the school grounds already. Soon he noticed glimpses and no one was making an eye contact for more than a sec. Their voices disappeared once he was close to them. Everyone was keeping his distance. They were afraid of him. It's not like he had any friends here, except for Sonic that became his rival. Yet it hurt him a bit.

He decided to turn some of these stories into the truth. He wanted to make real friends for Maria's sake. The school started and Shadow waited till lunch break to find Sonic that today returned to the school. He saw him during one small break walking without crutches. It gave him hope his legs got better.

"Hi, Sonic," he greeted him when he met him in the hallway, but blue hedgehog only walked pass him, without looking at him. "Hey, what's up!" Shadow grabbed him but Sonic pushed him away.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted and continued down the hallway. Shadow was surprised. He never thought that Sonic could ever be so cold. When the school ended Shadow headed to the roof. If he should be looking for Sonic, the roof was the first place to check. And he was there, laying on the floor with closed eyes.

"What do you want? Get lost!" growled blue hedgehog.

"What's gives? You want the answer first or me getting lost?" replied annoyed hedgehog.

Sonic stood up frowning. "Stop stalking me!"

"I'm not stalking you! I wanna talk with you!"

"About how slow I'm now? How can you beat me with closed eyes? Or you just wanna laugh at me?"

"Neither of it!" Shadow's blood was boiling. What's his deal? Why's he bringing his speed up like that? "I just wanna now what happened to you!"

"What happened? The smartest hedgehog on the school and he can't guess it? Did your brain rot?"

"Shut up! I know your legs are messed up!" Shadow clenched his fists. "But what's with your attitude?"

"Mine's fine, it's you that need fixing!" He punched him in the face. Shadow wasn't expecting it. "Trying to play hero?!"

Shadow replied with his fist. "What hero?!"

They exchanged another fist. "Don't play innocent!"

Shadow growled and for some time they were exchanging fists and kicks like crazy. Shadow toppled Sonic at the ground hitting him in the face. Sonic hit him in the chin, making him bent back and gaining a chance to stood up, throwing the black hedgehog on the floor. As was Sonic attacking, Shadow activated his boots to get on the other side of a roof. Blue hedgehog shouted and sped up, but suddenly he jerked and screamed in the pain holding his right leg.

"Sonic," Shadow rushed to him.

Sonic waved his hand and yelled: "Don't touch me, you faker!"

For Shadow, everything went black and when he started to hear his own panting, he was in some back street. He had no idea how much time passed or how he got there. But he didn't want to see his face ever again! He was same as everyone! Only Maria… Only Maria was his friend! Not caring about anything, he returned to the Space colony. There he found out, that Maria's condition suddenly worsen. Doctor Robotnik was at this time on the way to the colony from the Mobius as he had to tell personally his superiors the latest news and progress in the project Shadow he was the result.

The doctors and scientist were pretty much ignoring Shadow as they saw him as enemy or something that should not be. He never cared about them either.

"I think this time it's the end," said one doctor while walking.

"She probably won't make it till the morning, huh?" said another one.

Shadow was near them, but as they were walking fast, they overlooked him. 'The medicine!' He rushed into doctor's laboratory as he occasionally helped him there. He as well remembered doctor was saying he is close to the solution. He just needed to do few more tests. 'Doctor had to make a cure!' He looked at his table searching for it. There was a lot of papers about it but the actual product wasn't there.

'Where it is?!' Shadow was panicking. Maria could die any minute! 'There it is!' he found it in a test tube that was inside of container at the other side of the lab. The liquid was black just like his fur. Shadow get to Maria. She was in her room, laying in the bed. The machines around her were silently beeping and showing her condition. Other doctors did what they could and now they waited for Gerald's return to decide what to do next, so they gathered in the room next to this one.

"Maria," Shadow silently said. She didn't respond. "It's me, Shadow." He came closer. "Look, I have a medicine." He put the test-tube in front of her. "It will make you better." He opened the test-tube, lifted Maria's head and let her swallow the liquid. She made silent sound and the machines… they started to make a loud noise.

"Maria?!" shouted Shadow and shook her.

"What happened?" shouted doctor that ran into the room. "Quickly, we need to…!"

They pushed Shadow back, but he wasn't paying any attention. He only saw Maria's death face. Soon the room was full of doctors, trying to bring Maria back to life. Shadow was nowhere to be seen. He hid the test-tube in his hands running away. He rushed to Mobius as he had no courage to face Gerald. There he ran even more, and more, and more until he was completely exhausted.

He stayed in hiding for days before he had a courage to even check on the doctor. But before he could contact him, he heard the news on TV. Maria died and doctor committed a suicide after the government decided to shut the colony down.

Shadow's world… shattered.

* * *

"Oh, how sad," said sarcastic Mephiles. Silver was crying as the sadness and feelings of absolute powerlessness were overwhelming.

]Let's finish this.[

Silver clenched his teeth. Almost his whole body was covered by dark masses and his mind was getting blank and empty.

"That's right. Give up. What's the use of fighting anyway?"

Silver's vision got blurry and four crystals looked now so distant. "Even if they all were so strong, they lost everything. They lied to others to feel better, they fought a hopeless battle, they sacrificed own friend to live and killed the person they loved. Being alive is just so painful. Can't you hear their screams?" Silver hedgehog indeed heard their screaming voices full of pain and grief. "So, let it go."

Silver's hands were slowly falling alongside his body. "Your present state is weak anyway. You have no confidence in your powers or actions. What's the point in trying when you fail? I know everything about you." He was right. Silver never had much confident. All this was a just mistake. A silly moment of emotional burst. "Yes, that's it. Forget about everything and let it go. Leave everything behind." Silver's eyes were slowly closing. "It's no use." Silver jerked and his body started to glow. "What-!"

A Huge wave of psychic energy tossed Mephiles out of Silver's body.

]Where is that power coming from?[

Blue aura engulfed two big rocks and he threw them at both Mephiles. Zephiles avoided it but Mephiles was hit as he was still in his liquid form.

"You said you know everything about me," said Silver angrily. "Then know this! … I hate that sentence!"

To be continued…

* * *

So, how it was? Was there anything surprising or original? Most parts are pretty much the same, so I tried to sparkle them a bit. Man, I just love this part and I'm total cry-baby when it comes to sad parts. Almost anything can make me cry, I even cried while writing it. My the most favourite part is Eclipse's past, for some reason I kinda like to see him suffer... but I as well want for him to feel better, so I guess hurt/comfort tag for him ;-).

Ps. There are two obvious references, did you find them? :-D


	9. Crack in the darkness

]It seems our original plan has failed.[

"I figured that much," replied annoyed Mephiles.

"Release them! Now!" shouted Silver.

]Even if you did avoid your fate, you cannot change your destiny.[

"We will see about that!" Silver lifted stones and flung them at them.

Zephiles had no problem in destroying them while Mephiles preferred to avoid them.

'I have to somehow free the others!' Silver looked at the crystals. 'But how?'

]You cannot free them.[ Silver jerked. ]Don't tell me you forgot I can read your mind.[ Zephiles threw at him a dark ball.

"It must have slipped my mind," he replied sarcastically.

"How amusing," whispered Mephiles, that got behind his back.

'Oh, crud!'

Suddenly Mephiles shouted in pain and fell to the ground with a smoke coming from his back.

"Here is the first installment, jerk!" shouted hedgehog robot.

"Crack!" Silver flew to him. "Where did you-?"

Crack interrupted him with a hand gesture. "That black jerk face sneak on me and kicked my tin butt. Good grief he didn't double check his job. Guess the crystallization doesn't work on non-biological beings." Crack's body was full of scratches and at some places, the cuts went thru his armor. "I'll take these jerks on, so you figured out something with these crystals." He flew not waiting for the answer.

"Yeah," said Silver a bit frustrated. Yet again he was losing a self-confidence. 'Oh, come on, Silver, didn't you go thru this once before?' Well at that time he didn't have to rescue someone from the crystals. He just had to fight with ancient man-eating gigantic alien.

He flew down and touched the first one with Rouge. 'If they are still alive, I may be able to connect our minds. Gold did give me a few lessons.' He wasn't still sure, but Crack's battle cry reminded him there is no time or space for doubts. 'I just have to do it.' He put hands on the surface, closed eyes and let his power to find Rouge's mind.

At first, there was no response but soon he heard her… thoughts or so. Her mind transformed into pictures. She was sitting at a ground and looking at her the biggest mistake. Silver slowly approached her and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn't react only watched Diebe's last moments.

"You know, I'm not good with words, so it may sound weird but… you have to get up." Rouge didn't answer. "I can't say forget this, and him, and move on, I'm telling you to embrace your fear and to move on! I don't now how it feels to lose someone precious to you. But you mustn't give up." Rouge didn't answer. Silver sit in front of her so he could see into her eyes. "Wake up! You are still alive and you can do so much!"

Female bat didn't response. "Oh, come on!" Silver shook with her. "Don't tell me-!" Silver looked a bit down below her neck. 'It can't… Oh, crud.' He pressed his hand on her chest.

"Perv!" shouted Rouge and kicked him. Silver fell on his bottom. The crystal shattered and Rouge was standing there confused. Then she looked at him and Silver made very awkward smile.

"Please, don't hit me, I didn't mean it!"

Rouge looked around. "Where-?"

"I know, there is a lot to explain but this black hedgehog closed you into crystal and made you see your most painful memory." Rouge shivered as she remembered it. "Please, help Crack, I'll deal with the rest." He stood up and touched Sonic's crystal. He again connected their minds. Sonic was lying on the floor in prenatal position. Silver shook with him. "Sonic, wake up!"

"No," he replied silently. At least he was communicating.

"No nos! Get up! We need you to fight!"

"Who cares! There is no meaning to it anyway!" Sonic tighten his position.

Silver growled and hit him in the head. "Your uncle didn't raise you to be a coward!" The word "uncle" made Sonic to quickly open his eyes. "You may lose your parents, you may lose your speed, you may lose your uncle, but you didn't lose your future!"

Sonic jumped on his feet. He hit Silver in the face. "What can you know?!"

Silver stood up and caught Sonic by a collar. "Maybe nothing, maybe something, maybe all. But I'm sure you can't have a future if you just give up! So keep running!"

"I'm sick of running! It never stops to haunt me!" In Sonic's eyes were tears.

"Then stop running from your past and run for your future!" Sonic's eyes widen."I know you are lot stronger and there may be a lot of heavy things on your shoulders right now, but take them one by one at a time and you will see it's not that heavy! Don't you have friends? They will help you! I'll help you the best I can. So don't give up!"

"But I… killed my uncle…"

"Yeah, I know," Silver let him down. "I have no idea what to say, but I'm sure your uncle would want for you to be strong. Well, we all make mistakes, we all regret them but letting them control us won't help us to grow stronger."

Sonic wiped tears. "You are right, but I lost my speed and my extreme gear was destroyed."

"You are still alive and together we can make a change."

Sonic nodded and Silver released the mind link. Purple crystal shattered and Sonic was free. They looked at fighting duo. Rouge had a hard time as her mobility was limited, but her kicks were powerful. Crack was helping her and covering her, and they made a good duo.

]You![ shouted Zephiles and flew toward them.

Sonic used a spin attack, unfortunately, he missed, but Silver hit possessed Zilver with his psychic aura. Crack and Rouge now got a clean shot at Mephiles. Sonic get up and attacked standing Zephiles. "Get the others!"

Silver nodded and touched Eclipse's one. Their mind connected practically immediately.

"Eclipse!" Silver ran to him. Alien looked at him with eyes full of tears. "Don't cry! You and your Darklings are fine."

"But I failed my master."

"You didn't."

"I did, I didn't avenge him or my race. The planet is still alive and…"

Silver put his hands on his shoulders. "Your master… I didn't have a chance to meet him, but I'm sure he wished for you to be happy. So are you happy?" Eclipse looked at him showing great confusion. "Dark Arms are alive and they love your cooking and you like cooking, right?" Eclipse nodded. "You and your brother are pretty much friends now, right? You found mutual understanding, right?" He again nodded. "Do you regret meeting people here?" Eclipse shook his head." Do you hate living here?"

"No."

"Then there is no problem! Living for revenge is too sad and lonely. I don't want you to do it. Not when you have found peaceful life here." Eclipse clenched his fist a bit. "There is nothing bad on not taking a revenge it means you understand that doing it has no purpose. You won't gain anything and no one will be resurrected."

"But what about you? Would you take a revenge?"

Silver scratched on his head. "Well, that's hard to tell… but I think I would be really angry… and maybe… I would kick that person butt, but… killing him… I'm not sure with that. I never felt that way."

Eclipse looked behind where the pictures of his past were shown. "You know, one old lady told me, that hating is easy and killing takes only a moment of courage to do it. But forgiving needs a lot more as it takes a time to forgive and move on."

Silver smiled. "That old lady is very wise. I agree with her." Eclipse's crystal shattered. Just when Silver opened eyes, Crack crash landed next to him making him jump. "Crack!"

Electric sparks were running over his body and his LCD display glitched here and there. "I'm -kztt- fine." He slowly stood up.

]How dare you to prolong their pain? Can't you see it's pointless?[

"No life is pointless!" shouted Silver. "We may feel pain, we may be sad, we may even hurt someone else, but as long we live, we can change ourselves or others and be happy as long we don't give up!"

Rouge made few somersaults, getting away from Mephiles with Sonic at her tail. "Sheez, that guy's so tough," he panted.

"No matter how many times I kick him, he still stood up."

"Don't you see clinging to false hopes only creates more pain?" Mephile's voice was cold.

"False hope or not!" Eclipse was really angry for being caught so easily, for putting his Dark Arms in danger and especially at himself for giving in to his old memories. "We'll still kick your asses!" Darklings agreed with him. Even they lived thru their worst memories once more.

Silver looked at Shadow. He was barely seen as the crystal turned almost completely dark.

]You won't erase his pain![ Zephiles gestured with his hand and the last crystal dived in the water.

"No!" Silver tried to catch it, but it was too late.

"We shall free the world of this pain!" Mephiles shouted and from the ground emerged many shadow figures that took a form of many partly crystallized monsters in various shapes.

"Get to Shadow, Silver, we will take care of them!" shouted Rouge. Silver looked at the pond that seemed to be very deep and dark.

"I'll help you! Black Arms always share mind link, we can get to him thru my head!"

"Okay," Silver put his hand on Eclipse's forehead.

"Fine, let's protect them!" shouted Crack and shot one monster. Darklings joined the battle too. They individual powers were weak, but together they could take down monster by monster, or at least assist someone in distracting them.

"We are still alive and kicking!" Rouge made sure they got the message right as one monster's head ended in the air.

Sonic used his increased speed to confuse them while others took them down. "You are too slow!"

Silver and Eclipse established a mind contact with Shadow, but the sudden resistance threw them off, separating them.

'What is… Where am I?' Eclipse slightly opened his eyes. He was tired and lost. He remembered that he was helping Silver to connect to Shadow's mind. 'So we're here, huh?' He looked around. His body was floating in the middle of a dark void. He turned around as he noticed a presence.

'Who is it?' there was a rift in the darkness showing some dim place and someone laying on the floor. He floated a bit closer. 'That's!' It broke his drowsiness. "That's me!" He was looking at himself during the time he spent sleeping in the sewers. "Hey, wake up!" He flew toward himself, but his hand went right thru his body. "What?"

But he had no time to try it again, as silent steps were getting closer. Floating Eclipse turned to confront the incoming person. "You!" he shouted as from the shadows emerged… Shadow the Hedgehog! He stopped only a few steps from sleeping body.

"No, you won't" Eclipse attacked him but he only passed thru him. Shadow came even closer, touching Eclipse's laying body. "I won't let you!" He jumped and went thru, ending few meters away as he had a problem to control his floating body. "Why can't I?" He was confused but slowly he started to understand that this is just memory… Shadow's memory.

"Mike two to Black," sounded from hedgehog's mini ear-piece. "Any luck in finding that alien scum?"

Eclipse caught his breath. Shadow stood up, touched the small button on it to answer the call and said: "Black to Mike two. Nothing so far." Eclipse's eye widened. Wasn't he just laying before him? Didn't he massacre his own race a just couple of days ago? Why would he…? Shadow turned away and disappeared in the tunnels.

"Hey, wait!" Eclipse rushed after him, but he only ended up in the void. "Where are you? Why did you…?!" Eclipse was looking around like crazy. "Blurk!" he shouted as he glimpsed him. He was laying on a wooden plank, drifting in the river. "I'm coming for you!" Eclipse jumped but he noticed too late he had no chance to save him from the fall in the river.

"No!" He turned to only see an empty plank and a quick movement. He turned back and found Blurk in the arms of… "Shadow?!" The black hedgehog was already caring eel-like Cyzer. Shadow checked Blurk's breathing rate, then his eyes shined a bit. It was the signal he used weak Chaos pulse to locate his kin, as his mind link to them was weak. He ran toward third Dark Arms with Eclipse right on his tail. The alien was confused by his brother's behavior.

There he found hurt and scared Rhygenta hiding in the bush with unconscious Cregal next to her. What's more? Eclipse heard soldiers just behind the building on the river coast. Three flashlights were moving toward them.

The soldiers will discover them in less than few minutes. Shadow wasn't waiting that long. He quite gently knocked out Rhygenta, preventing her from seeing him and took them all somewhere. The pictures changed and Eclipse was now in the park. He very well recognized the old pavilion and he saw Shadow put them there, hiding them from soldiers.

But why?

"Are you sure this is a good decision?" The park was gone. Now he was in some room and next to Shadow was a female bat. It was Rouge. It was she, who asked that question. Shadow wasn't answering, but looking down thru big window.

Eclipse stood next to him. Remembering what this room was for. It was Shadow's personal room where he could watch matches in the ring in complete privacy. In the ring was a huge polar bear fighter and his opponent was… Eclipse.

"You lied G.U.N. about his death, once they find out, they will be furious."

"Ah that, I wouldn't worry about that."

"What do you mean?" Rouge waited few minutes, before continuing, "So you won't tell me? Not surprising."

"G.U.N. has no need for an action if Eclipse won't eat anyone," said Shadow.

"Sometimes I don't really understand you. Helping your worst enemy to get stronger so he could kill you…"

"Pff, he just shows potential in being a good fighter."

Rouge crossed her arms and stepped closer to Shadow. "So how are you planning to stop Eclipse from eating humans? Once it happens G.U.N. will know he is still alive."

Shadow smirked. "Eclipse isn't an idiot. He knows that once he will kill a human, he will have all of us on his tail. So keeping a low profile and putting killing me at the first spot of his Kill-list will allow him not to worry about G.U.N. or to be more accurate – to not worry about the safety of his Dark Arms. During his time as a prey, he very well understood what it means to be hunted and that he isn't strong enough to wage a war to the whole planet."

"And here you are helping him to accomplish that," Rouge sighed.

"Maybe," he answered after a while.

"Now I'm sure you have to be at least a bit crazy, but… I'll trust you."

The next match started. Eclipse remembered this time. It was a two months after his awakening in the hospital and a start of his fighting career. This day he was challenging twenty opponents in the row to quickly fulfill the one hundred fights quote he made for himself before facing Shadow. He could easily win by using Chaos control, but Shadow indirectly pointed out, if he can't defeat some street punks on his own, he has no chance against him. And Eclipse knew, he was right on this one.

Shadow turned away at the same time Eclipse in the ring glimpsed at him, thinking he is making a fun of him.

"Guess I should start training on my own," with these words Shadow left the room. The surroundings turned dark leaving Eclipse alone.

'So Shadow… he saved us?' It was so hard to believe it.

"Eclipse!" called him Silver. "There you are. I thought I lost you."

"Guess Shadow doesn't like visitors in his head."

"But where is he? I found the rest of you so easily."

"Good question."

They started to look.

* * *

[Back to real world]

* * *

]I see using words is futile.[

"You figured that now? Even Silvie is a genius compared to you!"

]Non-living beings are so irritating.[

"I bet you can't crystallize me."

]Unfortunately, the process works only on organic beings indeed. However… [ Zephiles hand glowed and psychic aura engulfed Crack. ]… it's unnecessary in your case.[

"How… -kzzt-… you know?"

]It's simple. As I said before, I'm Mephiles from Zilver's time.[

"Must have -kztrr- missed it."

]Oh, right, you were at that time bit out of it. Anyway, when you and the other psychic hedgehog came, I was already part of Zilver's mind, he just had no idea.[

"The darkest place… is under -chrzt- the candlestick, huh?"

]Well said, so I had no problem in finding weaknesses of our enemies, providing false information, and blocking or manipulating with his memories.[

"What?"

]The day of awakening is indeed at the later date, but I and my past-self agreed on a slight change of the plan.[ He lifted his hand and the big monster-like pillar started to cracking. ]Now it's only a matter of an hour before the world returns to its purest form.[

"So the… crystal on its chest -kztr-gh-" Crack jerked as Zilver tighten his grip.

]It wasn't complete lie but destroying it will release its sealed power a lot sooner.[

Crack frowned. "Why are you -ghztst- telling … "

]I'm sure you know, that you won't function long enough to talk about it. Die without being able to do anything about it![

"Black shield!" exclaimed Crack and his body was closed in two pyramids-like structure.

]What?[ Zephiles completely lost his grip on Crack.

"You were saying?!" Crack flew into him and didn't stop until they crashed into a wall. Then he flew to his team. "Hey, guys! We have less -kzz- hour to wrap it up, the monster is awakening and so don't touch -kzzt- crystal on its chest!" He shot two monsters. "Zilver was mind controlled -krzz- whole time. The other bastard is from his time!"

"You mean?" asked Rouge while avoiding a hit.

"Zilver is under a control of Mephiles from the future!" Crack missed his target as his vision was really bad for a moment.

"What can we do?" asked Sonic. He as well felt pain in his legs as he was pushing its limits.

"Stand our ground, till Silvie finish his job!" He looked at him still looking for Shadow. Crack felt on a knee.

'Kill him! He is my nemesis!' familiar voice sounded in his head.

'Hmph! You actually thought you could defeat me?' said blue blurry figure.

'Target Acquired.'

'Is that all you've got?'

'Like a fake could outrun me.'

'Long time no see, my loathsome copy'

The more he heard the more he could tell it was… Sonic. He stood up and his eyes turned red. "Target acquired. Response: Destroy." He aimed at busy Sonic without anyone noticing.

'I AM THE REAL SONIC!'

* * *

[Back to Shadow's mind]

* * *

"This space is really big," noted Silver.

It felt they are walking for hours now without discovering anything.

"I'm pretty sure, we are going the right way." Eclipse looked into the darkness. He never thought, finding a mind of his own kin would be so difficult. Before on Black Comet, Shadow was resisting but now there was no struggle yet it was difficult to find it.

"Hey, look," Silver pointed toward a dark purple light. Eclipse squinted a bit while trying to see it. The color was close to being just black that it was easily overlooked.

"Guess, you hit the jackpot," Eclipse showed him thumb up. They ran toward it.

"It's really Shadow."

He was sitting on the floor, showing no signs of life and the dark purple light was dancing around him like flames. Silver put his hand toward him when the light slashed him. Hedgehog jerked and jumped back. The light turned into tentacles and tried to smash them.

"What you did?" shouted Eclipse while avoiding them.

"I just got closer."

Once they were enough far the tentacles returned to being just light, that then transformed into pyramid-like shield surrounding Shadow. Silver quickly approached him and very slowly touched the shield. It was cold but it didn't try to attack.

"Shadow, can you hear me?" Hedgehog shouted, but he got no reaction.

"I think he can't hear you. He totally closed himself from the world."

"That can't be! We have to wake him up!" Silver was banging his fist on the shield.

* * *

[Back to real world]

* * *

"What are you doin'?" shrieked Sonic as he just avoided plasma ball. Crack was attacking him.

"Stop it, Crack!" Rouge caught him, but he effortlessly tossed her away. "Like the monsters weren't enough!" she muttered.

"Cool your jets, already!" Sonic hit him with a spin attack, but he hardly had enough speed to seriously hurt him. Like the monsters and time spent inside of the crystal wasn't enough, they now had to deal with one of their own.

]Interesting.[ Zephiles and Mephiles were know observing them. ]We did nothing yet it's doing our job perfectly.[

"Not quite." Other dark hedgehog looked toward Silver and Eclipse. "We have to stop them from releasing him from the pain."

]I agree. It's time to purify this rotten world.[ While Zephiles flew toward the duo, Mephiles entered shadows and disappeared.

"No!" exclaimed Rouge, when she noticed Zephiles was hovering few meters from Silver. She tried to run, but her legs were too weak and she fell to the ground. Darklings got separated and now had trouble to regroup, let alone to help them. Zephiles put his palm toward Silver's head. The dark purple ball of psychic energy slowly formed.

]Farewell.[ At the moment, he wanted to release it, the stone wall exploded and the cave was full of dust. ]What's that?![

From the cloud of dust emerged like 15 meters tall robot with big two pairs of arms. The head was made of glass globe and below it was big orange bow tie… no, it was a mustache!

"Professor Eggman!" shouted Rouge happily and her tears came down.

"Get away from them!" shouted professor to the microphone and from his hand emerged small cannon. He aimed at Zephiles and fired. The missile looked like a water ball and it actually was water ball.

]How pathetic.[ Zephiles slashed it in half and the water splashed everywhere. He caught his nose. ]What-![ The smell of evaporating liquid was horrible.

"Glad you like my Smelly bombs. Here's second serving!" Eggman fired another batch, forcing Zephiles to retreat as the smell was killing him. He couldn't concentrate properly. Robot flew with a big rocket at its back and landed near Silver. His and Eclipse's face looked like they feel pain while rescuing Shadow… or maybe they were able to smell the liquid before it completely evaporated and dissolved.

"How did you…?" Rouge panted.

"Crack was updating me with the latest information so I know what happened. I'm sorry if I'm late."

"No, you are just in time for the finale." Rouge made a poor joke. "Can you do something with Crack? He went berserk!"

Eggman looked at metal hedgehog pursuing blue blur. "I don't know but first, we have to neutralize him."

To be continued…

* * *

Sorry, for late update ^_^; So, what do you say? Like it? Hate it? Tell me all about it :-) Did anything surprised you? I bet nothing much :-D


	10. Counter attack

Sonic was confused why is Crack after him, but he noticed one thing. He was shooting only at him, not noticing anything around. The arrival of professor made him happy and at the same moment, he got an idea.

"Hey, tin can, think ya can keep up with me?" he taunted him, which was unnecessary as he already had his full attention. Crack sped up and fired, missing him by few inches. "Ya serious? What about tryin' to aim for once!" He stopped in front of two monsters, that were about to attack. "I'll be a nice guy and wait for ya!"

Crack shot a charged ball. Sonic jumped up the last second avoiding monsters and the bullet. "Too bad, I'm still faster!" Blue blur ran toward a bigger group of monsters. "Yar mom was a toaster!" The barrage of balls massacred the monsters while Sonic was mostly unharmed. If he wasn't counting the sharp pains in his legs that is. 'I have to keep up! I have to run!' He jumped toward Crack, landing on his face and jumping once more. "Step on it, metalhead!"

Sonic entered spin dash and slammed into few monsters, before landing on the ground. 'There is no end of them!' The monsters were still emerging from shadows and Sonic was sure happy to see Eggman even if he though his science lessons were boring.

'I never knew prof was making a cool robot.' He avoided a big monster with sharp claws and let Crack shot it while standing on its head. 'But shooting bubblegums and smelly water?' He smirked. If it isn't inspiration from his own pranks, he was a model student. He did once throw a smelly water balloon on him during summer or put bubblegum on his chair gluing him there. He sure did lots of pranks, when he taught in elementary school base of science. 'That sure were funny times.' Times before he lost his speed.

"Uwaah!" he shouted as Crack finally hit him. Sonic felt on the side but quickly got up. 'I can't give up!' He ran. "You call it a shot! I call it lame, metal freak!"

* * *

[Inside Shadow's mind]

* * *

"Dang!" cursed Eclipse. "I can't get thru him!"

Silver made awkward smile. "I may have an idea."

"So let's do it!"

"We may break thru his shield, but…"

"Spit it out! We are running out of time!"

"… our faces may break after that too."

"Cool, I'm sure we can life with that."

"If we live long enough," added Silver and took a deep breath ready to seal their fates.

* * *

[Real world]

* * *

"Gaah!" yelled Sonic that landed next to Silver and Eclipse. His legs definitely gave up. 'I can't move.' He looked at Crack, who was getting closer and closer, with his buster locked on blue blur's face. 'Is this the last finish line?'

"Professor!" exclaimed Rouge. Unfortunately, the monsters and Zephiles drove them too far from the pair, so they had no chance to help him.

* * *

[Shadow's mind]

* * *

"You won't wake him up!" called creepy voice.

"Mephiles!" yelled Silver and got goosebumps, remembering the time he tried to take control of his mind.

Dark hedgehog emerged from the darkness around them. Silver quickly put up a psychic shield around them and shouted at Eclipse: "Quickly, call him…"

* * *

[Real world]

* * *

"Farewell, fake hedgehog," said Crack and in the next second he wanted to fire, the water of the pond erupted and a black ball hit Crack head on, tossing him far away.

"Shadow!" shouted Rouge after a few silent seconds. He was standing there, soaked, panting and his pupils were shaking with anger.

Eclipse slowly looked at his half-brother and gulped: "I'm glad… I didn't have to say it."

"I told you our faces will break next," Silver awkwardly smiled.

"W-What … " Shadow looked around.

]Impossible![

"Shadow!" shouted Silver. "You were trapped in the crystal and forced to see your most painful memories!" Shadow jerked, remembering it. "It's the fault of Mephiles from the future and present!" Silver and Eclipse got farther from the pond as Mephiles appeared. "Zilver was possessed by Mephiles from his time, becoming Zephiles!" Silver tried to explain it as simple as he could.

"And we have less than fifteen minutes to destroy the monster responsible for ruining our future!" added Rouge screaming, kicking one enemy down. The stone structure looked like it will explode in the next five minutes.

Silver looked around. "Where is Crack?"

"In that crater and he went nuts! He started to chase me and shooting at me." Sonic pointed at the hole and slowly got up.

"Why would he do that?" Silver ran to him. There he found him, laying in pieces. Only his head, arm and part of torso looked more or less in one piece. "Crack! Are you OK?"

"Anyone remem-ztr- the version of the Dea -ztr- Egg that crash landed -kztr- me?" mumbled wobbly Crack. Silver knelt next to him. LCD display was dark and sparks were dancing on his body.

"Professor!" Silver shouted and lifted big stone under Crack's body, as he didn't need to damage him even more by his psychic aura.

"I'm on my way!" replied Eggman and stomped two monsters, but another four replaced them in a moment. Professor opened the cockpit and let Silver lay down Crack.

"Can you fix him?"

"I'll do my best."

Silver returned to the rest that regrouped below the Eggbot. Both Mephiles and Zephiles were in front of them.

"We have broken your silly decoration," said Silver smugly as he felt really great.

"It's just the proof you're pathetic lifeforms clinging to the life even if it's pointless," replied calm Mephiles.

"Shut it, jerk face!" shouted Eclipse. "Clean your asses, I'm gonna kick them hard!"

"Count me in," added Shadow with a cold tone. It was obvious he was furious, but being the underground boss he learned how to keep his temper in check.

"I'm ready for the round two." Sonic's legs were shaky, but he put a brave smile.

"I can't let boys have all the fun."

"The science will prevail!" added Eggman to the microphone. Silver listened, but Crack said nothing.

'He must be heavily damaged.'

"This is the end!" exclaimed Shadow and rushed toward them.

"Let's get dangerous, kiddies!" Cyzer merged with Eclipse, granted him two laser arms and the alien ran after Shadow, while rest of the Darklings were following.

"Let's go!" Rouge made a step but immediately felt. "Dang, my legs."

"Mine too," admitted Sonic.

"Come up here!" called them Eggman. "I'm busy repairing Crack, you can operate my Eggbot."

Sonic and Rouge made happy smile, but Sonic's one was more evil-like. He will have cool time crushing the monsters. And speaking of the monsters, they were rushing towards them.

"No, you don't." Silver picked the blue hedgehog and the bat up and flew them to the cockpit. There he took a quick look at Crack, but only a head remained from him now. Silver returned to the ground. Eclipse and Shadow were fully engaged in the battle against the dark duo. They matched their powers and were even pushing them back a bit. "Sorry, this is a private party." He picked monsters and threw them at others, destroying them. 'But how long we can keep this up?' He looked at the stone statue as more and more cracks appeared.

Zephiles separated from Mephiles and flew to the other side of the cave.

"You won't run away! Chaos … " Shadow disappeared. " … control!" He appeared one step ahead of Zephiles. Black hedgehog hit him to the face and pushed him back. Zephiles answered with a powerful kick. 'He is even stronger than Zilver was.' Shadow held his ground and attacked with a straight punch. Zephiles jumped back.

'Let's see.' Shadow was watching him and slowly activated his inherited ability allowing him to "smell" his opponent's intentions or emotions. 'Interesting.' Black hedgehog felt a mix of different things. There was a fear, power, thinking and calm mind. The fear had a different smell than others suggesting it belonged to Zilver while the rest was from Zephiles.

'Funny, that I can feel something from him now and not before.' He remembered their fight in the arena. He felt so strange and… alien, yet there was a faint scent of similarity. He didn't pay any attention it that time, who would anyway? He was just facing some punk, right?

He avoided few attacks and when Zephiles was about to hit him in the face, he bent down, revealing Eclipse with the power of laser behind him ready to fire.

"Take this!" the blue beam missed Zephiles just a few millimeters as he used teleportation to move back. "Blast it!" cursed Eclipse and stood next to Shadow. Zephiles made a quick glance on Mephiles, that was now slowly standing and shaking his head.

"They are starting to give me a headache," commented dark hedgehog, Eclipse knocked him down earlier.

"I still got a toothache, backache, and everything-ache in reserve, so keep coming," encouraged him Eclipse with a smirk bumping his fists against each other.

Zephiles looked at the big robot, that pretty much smashed their whole monster army and Silver was putting a big fight too.

"No thanks, the play time is over."

]Yes, the time has come![

Shadow and Eclipse quickly looked at the big stone, that was now making loud noises.

"Let's end your pointless pain."

"Come and get it!" shouted Shadow and formed a chaos spear in his hand ready to shoot. Eclipse switched to wings mode and flew up.

Mephiles turned to black mass and merged with Zephiles. They formed new hedgehog that sported striking similarities with Zilver but had more crystal structures all over his body, covering mostly his limbs and spikes making it looks like he was wearing some spooky armor. Around his body was constantly black haze making him seem ghostly.

Silver was looking at it from the distance. He gulped and said: "Oh, crud." This looks really bad, like oh, crud bad.

]Let's finish this![ New Zephiles let out a strong psychic wave, that hit everything around him. Everybody tried to hold their ground, but in the end, they have swept away, pushed to the walls.

"My body…" Silver muttered and looked at the others. Even Eggman's robot was thrown away and many new cracks appeared on its metal body. The glass of the cockpit was broken and Rouge was seen hanging half way out. Shadow and Eclipse were back at their feet, but little Darklings were down, barely conscious. Silver clenched his fists and slowly stood up.

]It's time.[ New Zephiles looked at the stone structure that was crumbling down.

"Not so fast!" shouted familiar voice. Blue blur hit the Zephiles right in the face.

"Crack!" shouted Silver that recognized robot's voice. But once he stopped moving it was obvious it wasn't Crack. The robot moved back to Silver, who looked at his repaired body, or more like Eggman transferred his whole memory to different hedgehog robot's body that happened to look like one robot he had a bad experience with. Hedgehog was surprised by it as he thought… Metal Sonic from his world got there and that would be the last thing he needs here. Crack noticed his surprised look.

"I knew it! I knew my tail looks fat!" Crack put hands on back and look there too. "I want my old body back."

Silver smiled. 'There is no way that could be true, right?'

]Enough![ shouted Zephiles, showing his patience was more than thin. The loud noise interrupted them all as the stone statue finally burst.

Everyone, except for a certain robot, was gasping as a hot air filled their lungs so quickly. No one was able to move, this time not even Crack, as his new body had a lot lower tolerance to the heat. Before them finally, stand the fire monster that turned the whole planet into a waste land. It was enormous beyond compassion as giant serpent appeared.

Its body was made of a magma and an armor of molten stone covered its back. Its head had two big horns and the mouth was wide full of sharp teeth, it's tree lizard-like eyes were green. It had two pairs of arms and the lower body looked like it belonged to lava slug. And what was above the surface wasn't even half of its body.

Everyone was laying on the ground, unable to think or react. They were "happy" to be able to breathe a bit.

'Is this… the end?' asked himself Silver. 'Was everything… for nothing?' He felt, that no training would be enough to take this monster down.

]So you finally realized that everything you did, was futile?[ Zephiles knelt before Silver, who was slightly raising his head. Zephiles touched his face in almost fatherly gesture. ]Do not worry, your pain will end soon.[ Dark hedgehog's head was suddenly hit by a small ball of water. He looked at Crack, that was barely standing. ]Still kicking back, I see.[

"And … you will see… even more… just wait."

]No, your time's up.[ He took off and flew toward magma monster.

"What do you say… Let's get dangerous," asked Crack with a childish spark in his eyes.

Silver slowly got on his knees. "Don't tell me you practiced that."

"Before the mirror no less," he grinned, or Silver thought so, as his new body was missing a mouth.

"We are beaten up…" Shadow coughed, "up against a gigantic monster with no hope… and you are making jokes? You are crazy!" He slowly stood up on his shaky feet. "And I like it."

"Welcome to the club of crazy Hogs, Shadie."

"Do you accept aliens too? I'm craving for some beat-it-lot action." Even Eclipse was able to stand up and his Darklings were conscious too.

"No prob, just fill the form, Eclie."

"Why am I always surrounded by crazy people?" Rouge lifted her head as she recovered a bit as well.

"'Cause we are insanely sexy?" Crack smiled at her… with his eyes that is.

"Not so fast!" Sonic sat up, "I'm still the best shot here!"

"Wanna bet?" smirked black hedgehog.

"Whoever beats the monster duo buys us a dinner!" shouted jolly Crack.

"Isn't it supposed to be the otherwise?"

"Don't sweat the details, Silvie."

The monster roared and the whole cave shook and stones started to fall down. "Take a cover!" Silver tried to use his power to make a shield but it was too weak and rocks easily penetrated it. Soon the cave collapsed and fire monster known as Iblis got at the surface.

]Finally, it took too long.[ New Zephiles was floating next to Iblis' head. The slug-like monster's body was so hot it made near air to wave. The thunder clouds that were hovering above their heads for so long time looked even darker and the rain started to fall. It was heavy and strong but the area around the monster was dry and steam was coming from him as the raindrops evaporated before they could even touch the ground.

]Let's purify this world.[ They moved forward but after just a few meters the ground behind them erupted. ]What?[ Zephiles felt the enormous power coming from it. ]But that can't be![

"Yes, it is!" Smirked Silver. His fur turned slightly gold. Shadow and Sonic were behind him and their fur changed color as well. They looked strong and full of energy.

]How?![ Zephiles aura darkened and black sparks were coming from his body. His eyes wandered behind the hedgehog trio and stopped at big green jewel. Next to it was standing Knuckles with closed eyes and his hands on the shining surface. Eclipse was next to him with palms just above the surface.

The Echidna was chanting: "The servers are the 7 Chaos. Chaos is power… Power enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos." Eclipse body started to shine a bit until he was completely engulfed by the light. Once the light disappeared, Eclipse's black skin turned to gold. Shadow looked at him with a light grin.

"Can't let you be the only coolien here." Black Arms' alien smirked.

"Don't tell me you are proud on that one," noted Shadow.

"Shush, don't be a party-pooper, it's my first time boasting."

Silver couldn't miss the small puns. Eclipse jumped to three gold hedgehogs.

"Alright, who is for the second round?" asked Silver pointless question.

]You shall perish![

Iblis roared and Eclipse with Sonic confronted him, while Shadow and Silver engaged Zephiles.

To be continued...


	11. When all ends (part 1)

The battle… no the war for survival could finally enter its last phase.

"What made you came here, old friend?" asked Eggman Knuckles as they could only watch. Rouge and Crack were next to them.

"I… had bad dream… a dream full of darkness and pain… and the light… it was dying… I knew I'm the only one who can save it."

"I see, but even so, you had to break the promise you gave to your ancestors."

"Yes, to never move Master Emerald from the Angel Island as it would fall in the ocean."

"The modern science is amazing isn't it," Eggman made a small smile. The Angel Island didn't fall and all thanks to special support rocket engines he installed beneath the island. They had enough power to hold it in the air for half of the day. He made them for a situation like this one… well, he didn't actually think there would be a fight with a gigantic monster to save the world from certain doom…

"Is there anything we can do?" asked Rouge.

Knuckles looked at her but had no answer… He was thinking. Crack was watching the fight, but wasn't particularly paying it attention. He was thinking about his strange behavior. Professor Eggman quickly informed him about his malfunction. He was now sure… there is different program inside of him… a different A.I. that used to rule this body.

* * *

[Sky battle]

* * *

]Nothing shall change your fates![ shouted angry hedgehog as Shadow and Silver were constantly attacking him.

'This power is amazing!' thought Shadow. 'I feel like there is nothing impossible!' He threw a bunch of Chaos spears. 'Even my Chaos control is so much better. Is this what Silver felt for the first time as he told us?' He looked at him. He formed two psychic fists and was attacking Zephiles' shield forcing the dark enemy to retreat. 'That guy sure knows how to throw a punch… when he puts his mind into it.' He had no habit in making stupid puns, but this time… he made an exception. He felt too good to be a grumpy hog.

"Zilver, I know you can hear me! Stop this! Fight it! The last thing I want to do is hurt you!" He avoided dark purple flame ball that scratched few of his hair on chest fur… far too often it happened. He growled: "But it's still on the list…"

'Well, well, what an interesting way to get his full attention,' thought Shadow with a sly smile. 'Then again, I would kill for it too.' Nobody can mess with hedgehog's chest fur and live with it!

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

"Smell you later!" shouted Sonic and flew from Iblis as it's claw crushed stone surface he was hovering over.

Eclipse hit it in the back with his super-powered up lasers. "Are we too hot for ya?" They grin at each other. This power was so awesome… awesome as way past cool awesome! Eclipse could fly without Cregal, but with him, he gained new power – steel wings that can cut thru anything. Not to mention… he always loved to fly with him.

Big jaws turned toward him, threatening to crunch him.

"Oh, what am I supposed to do?" said Eclipse sarcastic. "Li'l me against a big ugly monster." The jaws closed, but no alien was hurt. "Lookin' for me, ugly?" shouted Eclipse that warped just a few meters away and exchanged his power for Sonic cannon. He wasn't doing it often… he had soft spot for his well-mannered Rhygenta so he used her only occasionally, as she had the least stamina. And now was that moment, as he was next to the place you could call an ear entrance. "How sounds this?" the full power of sound wave hit the monster making it turn to the side and roaring. Ripped magma and molten stones were raining down.

"May I join the fun?" asked Sonic.

"Be my guest."

Sonic hit the head full speed, making the monster to waver even more.

"Sheesh, how many times you need to hit it to kill it?" snorted Sonic once he returned to Eclipse.

"It's no fun if it dies too soon, I can guarantee it as an expert."

Sonic jerked a bit. He completely forgot Black Arms were the specialist in slow and painful death. "Any bright idea then?"

"Let's punch it a lot." Rhygenta left Eclipse's body.

"I like your style, just don't invite me for a dinner." Sonic and Eclipse did a fist bump.

"No worries, I doubt you would taste better than strawberry cake even with all the seasoning I have." With this Eclipse jump in the action, leaving awkwardly smiling Sonic behind him. But he soon smirked and joined him.

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

"It's just like the ancient battle," whispered Knuckles. His skin was crawling from all the Chaos energy in the air. "The battle our brave ancestors fought to the death." He pictured the old fresco from the hidden room in his library. Seven heroes against powerful monsters. Only four of them were now fighting, like four heroes that sacrificed their lives. "Professor Eggman, will you help me?"

"I never thought you would ask such pointless question," answered Eggman with a wide grin. "How did you actually found us? It's been bugging me for a while."

Knuckles put Master Emerald on his back. "I asked him and he showed me the way," he looked at the big gem.

"You sure talk like there is spirit inside of it."

"Well," Knuckles made sly smile. He knew, Eggman was never found of spiritual stuff, believing everything can be explained with a science. They used to fight over it but as the time went they acknowledged each other opinions and upon it expanded theirs owns.

"So there is something we can do!" said loudly Rouge a bit angry he haven't said so earlier.

"It's not much of doing more like a try," admitted Knuckles and lead them back to the cave.

"Better then sittin' on a butt and doing nothin'," added Crack. He wanted to join the fight too, but his body was badly damaged not to mention totally unsuitable for heavy combat. Well, he should be glad to be active.

"Can you tell us the details?" asked Eggman and at the same moment, all of them ducked as the ground shook and shock wave rushed around them.

"I later returned to the secret chamber to study the ancient texts. There was nothing about weak spot on Iblis's chest." Knuckles slowly stood up.

"So Zilver lied?!" shouted Eggman.

"Not necessary," said Rouge. "From what I know, he was possessed by Mephiles from his time. So he could manipulate him."

"That's possible and giving how he looks now…" Knuckles looked behind on three fast moving balls of light. "It's the most logical answer. But I'm not sure, why he didn't try anything to get rid of me, since I can read the script too?"

"Maybe he thought you won't be a problem even if you interfere," suggested Crack.

"But what about Master Emerald? At this time it's the most powerful energy source. Shouldn't he destroyed it or something?" Rouge was right with this one. It sure was strange.

"You have never read any fantasy fiction, have you?" asked her Crack.

"Well, here and there, so what's your point?"

"You know, the bad guy have a big ego and long monologs giving heroes enough time to take them down despite it being the most stupid mistake ever. They always think they are better and no one can beat them, while they are digging their own grave by underestimating the heroes. So he may be doing the same thing. Underestimating us."

The group started to climb down from their post, following Knuckles that leads them. "Crack is probably right, not to mention… not even Mephiles could know about super transformation since it never happened in the future."

"That's the logic, my old friend," Eggman slowly made few steps as the footing was unstable, "none of us had any idea the Master Emerald could transform someone."

"I know with Master Emerald's help I can transfer even a huge group of people anywhere," admitted Knuckles. "But not even in my wildest dreams, I could see what Silver showed us," Echidna remembered a time he warped to our heroes in the nick of the time.

* * *

[Knuckles' memories]

* * *

"Take cover!" shouted Silver and tried to shield them with his psychic powers, but he was too weak and stones pierced his futile defense. When he thought it's over, green light shielded them. "Knuckles!?"

Echidna was standing among them, with the Master Emerald by his side. "Quickly, touch it, so I can teleport you away!"

"Wait, with this, the fight isn't over!" exclaimed Silver.

"What do you mean?" asked dispirited Eggman. "We are too tired, too hurt, not even my super Eggbot can scratch that monster."

"There is still a hope. Sonic, Shadow, do you remember what I told you about going Super?"

"Eh, yeah."

"Then watch." Silver touched the jewel, Knuckles frown a bit but soon he was surprised as Silver's fur turned gold. He could tell Silver is full of intense power. "This is my second time and I still think it's weird, but we can beat them." He clenched his fists. "Knuckles, can you use that chanting with the rest?"

"W-Well, yes, it has been passed down the generations since ancient times."

"Good, then listen, once the transformation start, think about how you want to beat these two, how you want to save the future, these thoughts will help you to keep your mind focused and nothing will go wrong."

Sonic and Shadow made a big smirk. It was time for some serious payback!

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

"That boy is full of surprises," said Eggman. Finally, they descended to the solid ground. Knuckles put an open palm before him and recited some other chanting and soon small light appeared before them, that formed into a figure. It was female Echidna in colorful poncho-like wardrobe with a headband.

"Welcome, I have been expecting you." Her fur had light orange color.

"My name is Knuckles the Echidna and you must be one of the seven heroes that sealed the Iblis and Mephiles away." He bowed.

"Yes, you are right and you have come here to seek a way how to finally free the world from its flames. I was expecting you. My name's Tikal."

"Please, guide us." She showed them a secret way to the inner sanctuary and they followed her.

* * *

[Sky Battle]

* * *

"Shadow, I know Zilver is still there."

"I have noticed."

"Do you think we can save him?"

Shadow looked at the dark figure. "There may be only one way, how to save him. To put him down."

"What?"

"It's the only way. It's no u—" Shadow widened his eyes as Silver suddenly looked completely furious.

"Don't you dare to say it!" He would probably catch his chest fur if Zephiles didn't throw few dark purple balls. "We have to try! We have to do it! He deserves to see brighter future!" he shouted while avoiding the balls.

"Fine." Shadow didn't seem happy about it and it's not like he doesn't want to help, it's just… he never saved anyone… he only knows how to destroy… doesn't he?

]We can try the same trick we tried on you,[ Silver contacted Shadow thru telepathy he was able to properly use in his Super form.

]Mind connection, huh? It may work,[ replied Shadow the same way while throwing chaos spear.

"Let's do this!" Silver created big hand from stones and slapped Zephiles, sending him flying. Shadow warped behind him and caught his head. Silver flew to them and put his hand on Shadow's one while connecting their minds. The World around them turned dark… very dark… and even more deep.

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

"Stupid lizard," mumbled Eclipse as he already shot him like for thousand times and it still refused to die. Iblis now transformed into new form sporting more serpent-like body, horns, and bit more rock armor, on the other hand, he lost two hands, but the remaining pair was more powerful now. Not to mention…

"Little help here!" shouted Sonic as he was occupied by dozens of small dog-lizard-like creatures that were biting, slashing with their long tail or claws and spitting small fireballs.

"Incoming!" Eclipse picked Cregal's power and one wave of his wings created a strong twister that tore dogs to the pieces.

"Cool, when did you learn that?"

"Just now," Eclipse grinned. Wisp left his body and Eclipse warped him to the safety. The fight was heating up and his Arms didn't power up so he decided to fight alone.

"Its armor is so tough!" said Sonic when Eclipse returned.

"It must have some weak spot!"

The monster roared and from its body started to appear big lava golems with a big torso and some bird-bat-like flying creatures which bodies were in one flame.

"How many of these pests it has?" Eclipse exclaimed angrily. "We can't keep destroying them forever!"

The bird monsters flew toward them. "You keep looking for weakness," shouted Sonic, "I'll keep them busy."

"OK!" Eclipse warped near Iblis and hit it in the molten rocks on its back. The monster felt the impact, but it did no damage, only birds noticed him.

* * *

[Zilver's memories]

* * *

"How's the child?"

Shadow woke up as he heard a voice. Once he opened eyes he was in some laboratory or hospital… or anything between it. He noticed Mobians and humans alike being treated. He had no idea where he is or how he got here, no one paid him any attention. When he noticed his body is bit transparent someone walked thru him, making him feeling uneasy… and even more when he noticed that someone was… him!

"ME?" He couldn't believe his own eyes. He looked the same… except for big burn scar, that covered left part of the face. The second Shadow stopped before healing pod. Shadow looked there too and gasped… inside was Zilver… as a small child. His body was literally interlarded with medical tubings and covered by some metal.

"He has a strong will," answered female doctor, that was having a robotic arm. "It's a miracle he survived the birth his mother gave while half-way crystallized."

Shadow shivered, he heard about it from Silver when they come looking for a help. Second Shadow put his hand on the glass and gently stroked it. "Make sure he gets everything he needs."

"I know," female's voice started to echo as the memory disappeared. Shadow was looking around himself and he saw glimpses of Zilver's memories. They were filled with a pain, loneliness, and hopelessness. He saw a big part of his life – as he was sitting in front of the grave of his mother and many others, as he failed to save someone from dog-lizard-monsters or seeing crystallization right before his eyes, he saw his sad smile while watching a small flower bloom in his death world.

With each memory, Shadow had more problems to breath.

]So you have come, just like I planned,[ Zephiles said behind him.

"Let Zilver go!" Shadow attacked him, but his movements were sluggish.

]No more delays![ A stream of fire appeared from nowhere and engulfed Shadow. He crossed arms before his face to protect it. ]You shall become the part of a new ultimate being. Your power shall help to clean this world![

"Shut it!" growled the hedgehog. "I have enough of this! I have enough of not being able to do one DAMN thing right!" he shouted and the energy burst from his body repelling the fire. "I'm ending you!" Shadow punched him as he gained his speed and power back.

]Cursed hedgehog![ Zephiles answered with a kick and Shadow blocked it. They exchanged blows like that for a while until Zephiles avoided his attack and flew away.

"You won't get away!" Shadow gave him a chase. Suddenly Shadow saw Zilver before his eyes . "What-!" His body was floating and his body was mostly covered by dark purple crystals. "Zilvere!" he shouted, but there was no reaction. 'He must be closed in the same nightmare I was!' The level of anger in Shadow skyrocketed.

Zephiles flew up and throw at Zilver big crystal ball. ]This shall seal your fate. You are no longer useful to me.[

"No!" shouted Shadow and used his body as a shield. The crystal exploded, but despite being in super form Shadow felt like it's piercing his very soul, cutting him from inside and filling him with incredible coldness. Yet he didn't kneel, he was standing, withstanding the pain… that was bringing up his most bitter memories. The dust around him started to subside when a sharp pain pierced his stomach.

He looked at a crystal lance, that find in him a target. Its owner was none one else then Zephiles, that used Shadow's brave act as opening for a clear hit. Black hedgehog grabbed the crystal weapon and pulled it out. The blood was everywhere… even few drops felt on Zilver's face. Shadow looked behind himself. Zilver's eyes, that were empty few seconds ago were shaking and he could hear his silent voice.

]M… Master?[

"Done with… your ]cough[ beauty sleep?" asked hedgehog with a sarcastic smile.

Zilver yelled… this time, it was his real voice, not telepathy. It was a roar of a wounded, angry and sad animal. It echoed and returned in greater strength, shaking with the space surrounding them.

]Impossible! We have broken his soul![ Zephiles cursed and something black landed next to him.

"Looking for someone?" Silver was panting a bit and frowning like never before. The black lump was Mephiles he beaten to the pulp. Even if there was one body for them now, there were two souls in it and Shadow and Silver were inside that very soul.

Crystals, that were trapping Zilver shattered, and his psychic energy was free… and going insane.

]We have to retreat![ shouted Zephiles at Mephiles and their souls left Zilver's body.

"Shadow, you are hurt!" shouted Silver and flew to him.

"Just a minor hole in the stomach, nothing I can't handle," he pressed his hand on the wound. He chuckled as he noticed pun in his statement.

"Just don't make a habit out of it, okay?"

"No, worries, I'm in good hands." Even Shadow felt he is going crazy, he never made stupid puns or smiled in front of somebody else then Maria. "So what now?" He looked at cybernetic hedgehog, as he created a sphere around himself.

"This must be some defense mechanisms, I'll try to connect to his mind and…"

"I'll do it."

"What? But-!"

Shadow touched the shield. "We don't have a time, while you babble here, these two creeps are ready to attack our bodies. So get out and show them your guts." Shadow's face was serious. "Just hope they won't take it too literally."

Silver made a bit angry smile, but then his face light up a bit. "No worries, I got that part." With that, he flew away and Shadow thought, 'Once this is over, I'll personally check your guts.' He looked at Zilver. His limbs were crossed in a defensive manner, his eyes were wide open and glowing just like all the "conducts" on his cybernetics parts.

"Keh, I talk all mighty, but I have no idea how to wake up this punk." He clenched his fist. "Well, I do know about one method that never failed… if it didn't do the otherwise." He again chuckled.

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

"Whoa!" shouted Eggman, as the ceiling shook like crazy. "That must be one wild party above us," he joked a bit. "Wish all my students were enthusiastic about science like that."

Ghost woman smiled. "You must love your students a lot."

"Yeah, even if most of them aren't scientific geniuses, I'm still proud of them."

"May you tell us, where you are taking us?" asked Rouge as she felt they are walking in circles. Once they entered the secret passage it looked like they stepped into a different world.

"The site of Iblis' sleep wasn't just made of its resting place but a place to seal his shadow too."

"A shadow?" asked Crack.

"Yes, the dark hedgehog named Mephiles... you can say he is Iblis's mind, without him, it's just a wild animal. Once he is sealed we can seal Iblis as well, as it will lose most of its power."

"Wouldn't be better to do something more effective… like destroy them?" asked Crack. "They did free themselves once."

"You are right, my metal friend, but that's not easy. Both of them are powerful beings. Just sealing them took a life of seven brave warriors" Tikal led them to open space. "There we are." The cavern was spacious, but not like the previous one where Iblis was sealed. In the middle was an altar and around it stood seven pedestals. "Please put the Master emerald on the altar, its power shall help us."

Knuckles did so without a word. Once the gem was floating above it, the seven pedestals started to glow with weak light. Tikal stepped on one and started to chant something. They all were looking around to see if anything is going to change, but nothing happened. Female Echidna rose her head and looked sad. "Just us I was afraid, Mephiles destroyed the tombs of fallen heroes, so they can never return to this world in the time of need."

"You mean you wanted to call the death guardians from the afterlife to seal them again?" asked Eggman and as a scientist, he was always skeptical about a supernatural phenomenon. But lately, he had to acknowledge there are forces between the earth and the heaven no science can explain.

"Yes, it was our only hope. They once used their souls to seal them, I hoped…"

"Great, no we have a ghost of the chance to win…" commented it sarcastically Crack. Everyone made sour expressions. "So, let's move to the plan B."

"You have one?" asked Tikal.

"Well, it's just a hunch, but…"

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

Sonic was destroying flame birds while Eclipse was hitting the monster from all possible angles and sides. For both of them, it was a daunting task, as nothing shown any results.

"This is crazy!" Eclipse shouted and moved to Sonic. "I can't keep up to hit it randomly. We have to come up with something." Sonic agreed with it. He felt his power was diminishing slowly. Iblis roared and his body started to change. "Just what we needed! A monster with a makeover!" yelled Eclipse frustrated.

Iblis now looked like a giant ogre, with horns and spikes on his back and shoulders, long tail and stubby legs. Its body was more covered by armor making it look indestructible. It's head, on the other hand, got a lot smaller, comparing it to the previous two forms. The monster waved with a huge hand and the heat wave hit both of our heroes and pushed them back quite a distance. Sonic was coughing a rubbing a sand from the eyes. "How many transformations it has?" asked blue hedgehog and helped Eclipse to stand.

"Don't you feel there is something strange?"

"Of course, heroes shouldn't have their ass handed to them."

"Not just that," Eclipse shook his head not hiding his ironic grin, "but look, it changes once more, right?"

"Make it quick, we have a company!"

From the new Iblis' body walked new golems, but their bodies were more purple and darker not to mention looking tougher. From the ground jumped new enemies in the form of long worms with mouth composed of three creeping mandibles. Even the flying enemies changed to purple haze and become even faster. All the monsters were heading to them.

"Guess time's up!" The army of monsters was constantly coming from Iblis' body. "It's do or die! Sonic, cover me!"

"What!" Hedgehog watched as Eclipse dived into the mass of monsters. "Sheez, slave driver." But Sonic got his hopes up for it. It looked like Eclipse did notice something important. And it was on him to make sure he will do it. "You think you are hotshot, huh?" his spin attack hit the purple golem in the chest, but he bounced back without doing a much damage. "Trying it makes hot for me, huh?" He avoided another golem attack. "I'll show you who is too hot to handle." Sonic entered extra spin attack and slammed the monster few times until it crumbled. "Guess even magma golem can't beat my heat!"

Few purple golems jumped in the air and their landing caused quite a quake. "W-W-Watch y-y-o-o-our ste-e-e-ps," stuttered Sonic as he was bouncing off the ground. When it stopped his head was bit dizzy. 'There has to be some other way how to get rid of them!' He noticed Eclipse was fighting with them too. "Incoming!" he slammed into few monsters causing them to take some others down.

"You took your sweet time," said a bit sarcastic Eclipse, even he was panting.

"These guys are tougher than they look." They stood back to back. The ground shook.

"Run!" shouted Eclipse and once they moved purple worms jumped from the ground.

"What gives?! I never went fishing!" shouted Sonic, punching one in the head.

"I think you can only -fish- to hook them with it."

"Was that a pun?"

"It would be no fun."

They both grin. Their power was leaving them and they still had time to make stupid jokes. The World around them was never crazier.

* * *

[Sky battle]

* * *

]I can feel it.[ Zephiles shoot few purple lasers, but Silver avoided them. ]Your power is diminishing. It will soon run out.[

"Not before I beat you!" Young psychic threw some stones at him. Zephiles easily crushed them but didn't count with Silver hiding behind them and getting into his personal space resulting in a clean punch in his face. "I won't stop until you are no more!" Silver's punches were making sure Zephiles gets the message. "You used Zilver!" This punch landed pretty nicely. "You destroyed everything!" The hit pushed him back. "And now I'll return everyone's futures to them!" Silver hit him in the face that hard it send him flying. The silver hedgehog was panting looking at the spot Zephiles landed.

]Everyone's future, huh?[ He stood up. ]You are gonna return it to them?[ The aura around him thickened. ]Then return me my future![ The burst of energy flung him in the air, hitting Silver in the gut.

To be continued…


	12. When all ends (part 2)

[Knuckles' group]

"So what do you think?" asked Crack.

Everyone was in deep thoughts.

"So, since the original guardians can't come you think our souls can do the trick?" asked Knuckles to make it clear.

"Well, when you say it aloud, it sure sounds weird," Crack had to admit it.

"Let's go with it!" said Rouge with great determination.

"But, it can… " Tikal was against it.

"It can what?" said the bat more sharply than she intended, making Tikal jerk. "It can kill us? If you missed it, there is the big monster that will kill us for sure!" Tikal looked at the ground. "This may be our only chance to do something. The boys are fighting for us. I wanna give it my all."

The only human among them sighted. "I agree. From the scientific point of view, it is the completely stupid thing to do." Eggman stepped toward one of the platforms. "But this isn't a mathematical formula. If this improves our chances of victory even by one percent, I'm for it."

"Tikal, you know we are right, don't you?" Knuckles as well stepped in one place.

"As a robot, I don't know a thing about a soul, so I hope my battery will do."

Tikal looked at them and small tears appeared in her eyes. "I understand." She flew to the center. "I shall now guide the power from your souls to the Master Emerald. With it, we will be able to seal the monsters once more!" All closed their eyes and Tikal started to chant.

* * *

[Zilver's soul]

* * *

Shadow felt the fight continues outside and it isn't easy. But it's not like his task was easier. Zilver closed himself in his own crystal, not allowing even hedgehog's punches to break thru. Once he put a dent into it, it repaired itself.

'Stupid crystals.' Shadow gently touched its smooth surface. "Yo, Zilver," he called his name, "so you're gonna give up?" No reaction. "Drowning in your self-pity? Closing eyes pretending nothing is happening? Showing your back to everything?!" Shadow put more strength in his hand, forcing his way. "If Silver was here, he would yell I'm pressing too hard on you." Crystal showed signs of being damaged. "See if I care!" He pushed even more, burrowing his hand further. "The world can go south, but not before I kick your sorry butt!"

Hedgehog's fingers almost reached to Zilver's crossed hands and his emotions got even wilder, swirling like a big tornado inside of Shadow's head. "Don't give up until it's over, you moron!" Shadow grabbed his chest fur, entering the crystal and shattering it to millions of pieces. Zilver's eyes opened, showing pain and tears were flowing down. Shadow slightly smiled, but then his face turned dark and he hit him in the face, throwing him to the ground.

"Get up!" he ordered, but Zilver didn't do it. Shadow jumped to him and kicked him in the stomach and once more before he grabbed him by his back quills and slammed his face to the ground. Zilver still showed no resistance. Shadow kicked him once more and a lot harder sending him flying. Zilver finally showed pain in his face and bend over catching his stomach. "Get up, you weaklin'! Fight!" Shadow jumped and landed with his feet on him, young one gasped for some air. Shadow grabbed his leg and started mercilessly slamming his body to the ground, ignoring Zilver's screams.

Once it sounded, he has broken few of Zilver's bones, he tossed him away. The silver furred hedgehog fell on his back, his eyes were wide open and shaking like crazy. His head was throbbing and nothing to him made sense. The world around him swirled in rainbow colors and echo of steps was ripping him from inside. He was scared, lost, confused and his body was burning.

"Let's finish this, punk," cold voice pierced his consciousness and erased everything else. He felt killing instinct and his body reacted to it. He felt warm liquid dripping from his fingers. His breath was racing with a beating of his heart. Blood was resonating in his ears and at the edge of his vision, he slowly recognized familiar quills. His head went once more completely blank.

]M-m-m… [

"What took ]cought[ you so long?" Shadow was leaning against Zilver's shoulder as he was pierced by him. The wound from Zephile's spear, despite being caused to his soul affected his body as well, had no time to properly heal.

]I… I… [

"Go, get that bas ]cought[ ard… Silver is too soft… " Black hedgehog's body slowly slid down.

Zilver was staring in front of him, not realizing he is now on the surface and that Shadow broke free his mind. The rain was hitting him. He hardly heard roars of lava monsters, cracklings of psychic energy or seen two pairs of fighters in death matches. Zilver's eyes wandered down, looking at gold and red hedgehog's body. The red blood was everywhere around him. He looked at his arm... it was bloody red. The thunder pierced the sky, making everything disappear for a moment. Once the flash was gone, Zilver was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

It took minutes, but it felt like an eternity when Eclipse finally fought his way to Iblis. "Die already!" he shouted and put everything in this one punch aiming for his green third eye. A pair of flying monsters were ready to stop him, but Sonic crushed their heads. Eclipse's attack found its target. Iblis roared like never before and shook his head. Alien's face brightened up with a wide smile. From monster's body burst flames, hitting him. Sonic rushed to catch him. "What you did? It's hot under the collar!"

Half-grilled Eclipse smirked. "More like hot under the third eye! It's his weakness."

"Now that's hot stuff!"

The monster realized its weakness was exposed and increased the number or minions it spawned not to mention it started to spit fireballs. Sonic, still holding Eclipse, run off as the ground got hotter not to mention many monsters were after them.

"We need to hit it… jut once more!" Eclipse was muttering. His scales was gaining a slight black shade.

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

'What is this?!' Rouge screamed in her mind. She felt her life energy is leaving her, creating a path to unseen existence. Her body was screaming and refusing to go with the flow, but she forced it. Tikal's chanting was echoing all around, guiding her mind to the Master Emerald. She felt her soul is leaving her body and her mind was bombarded by various visions. She saw ancient past and things she could never imagine.

It was an endless stream of worldly knowledge... she became one with the chaos energy flow. Her body... no, her soul became so light, all her worries and pains looked meaningless in the face of the whole universe. Memories flew around her and she felt nothing. She was free... free from everything. Before her eyes, she saw a dim light... she followed it. It led her to bigger light and around it were other lights... three of them. She formed a circle with them and danced around the central green light. An endless stream of words was swirling around them in a chaotic manner. It was telling a story older than the universe itself... a story so old no one knew about it.

Rouge looked in the big light. There was flame inside of it. She reached her hand and other light figures did the same. She recognized the faces but had no names for them as their images dispersed at the same time. Nothing mattered to her now, she only did what she felt she is supposed to do like a silent voice was talking to her from inside. Their hands slowly touched the flame and enclosed it.

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

"What's happening!" shouted Eclipse as Iblis' body was suddenly engulfed by a light stream of symbols. It struggled inside of it, showing a great deal of the pain.

"Now it's our chance!" yelled Sonic, noticing the monsters got a lot weaker. They both rushed toward the third eye, not wasting a second as their fur was returning to its original color.

* * *

[Sky battle]

* * *

]What's this![ shouted Zephiles. No one could overlook the sudden light pillar.

Silver was amazed but he felt warm inside like the light was calming him down. He looked toward Zephiles and formed a ball when Zephiles was suddenly screaming in pain. Silver gasped. Behind Zephiles was Zilver. His face had cold expression and in his hand, he was holding Zephile's arm... blood was bursting from the wound and dark hedgehog was cursing. ]H-How?![

Zilver had no answer only cold stare for him. He created a sword and attacked Zephiles without a single move in his face. Silver was shivering as Zilver's aura was cold like death itself. He felt... the same coldness from the time he was almost absorbed by Mephiles. The fight between two psychic was tense. Zephiles was clearly panicking and driven to the edge, resulting in a wild shooting. Zilver, on the other hand, was deadly calm, blocking and attacking without a single mistake. All his attacks found its target. Zephiles soon resembled a ragged doll.

'This is… ' Silver was shivering like crazy. 'This is… wrong!' Zilver was winning but it felt so twisted and bad. This wasn't the way Silver wanted it. Zephiles was struck down and his blood was everywhere.

]Why… aren't you broken?![ He was now realizing what his biggest miscalculation was. It wasn't leaving Silver alive but Zilver! Even though he controlled his body for years he had no idea he had such intense power inside. If he won't stop him now, everything will be over! All his plans… all his wishes… will be destroyed! Just like that time! ]I won't fail![ The moment he yelled, the air was shaken by intense energy. It paralyzed him for a moment as the energy engulfed him. His eyes shook like crazy as he recognized it. ]NO![

It was the same spell, that millenniums ago sealed him and his brother Iblis. He struggled, but he couldn't move! 'How's that possible! I destroyed the tombs! Their souls had no chance to return!' Inside of the stream, he felt one, two... four presence… no there was five of them... 'SHE?!' He recognized Tikal's soul. 'So that's why I couldn't find her grave. Her soul was chained to this place!' In the other souls, he felt the others... he gravely underestimated. ]You won't bring me down![

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

Rouge felt intense pain as Zephiles was struggling. She could tell the others are feeling it too. 'Stupid punk!' She clenched teeth and put up with it. Unfortunately, it wasn't just Zephiles who was struggling, sealing Iblis was hard too as they were far away from each other. Tikal's chanting was losing a bit of its effect as just four of them had no chance to seal them both. She was struggling to do it on her own. Rouge knew it... all of them knew it so they put, even more, energy in it.

* * *

[Ground battle]

* * *

"Die already!" shouted Eclipse and hit a partly immobilized monster in the third eye. He felt this finally did big damage, but it still wasn't enough! Monster protected its body with flames. Sonic caught screaming Eclipse and took him to safety. Alien felt the old scar on his back burning. "Once more… just one more hit!"

Smaller monsters were crumbling into pieces, but the bigger ones still represented a big threat. "I'll make you the path!" Sonic shouted and run. He felt his super power running low and he was afraid his legs' bones will shatter once he will turn normal. He wouldn't actually care if there wasn't a big ugly monster before him. His spin attack and spin dash were now destroying the monsters in one hit as they were severely weakened.

Eclipse was just a few meters behind him, ignoring the heat and climbing the huge monster's body. His fur was returning to its original color faster, so he lost the ability to fly. The lava skin was burning his skin and he had problems to breath, but he still climbed. The monster roared and its clawed hands were trying to rip the chains formed by many letters. Sonic spin-attacked few flying pests, when the molten stone armor erupted, hitting him with magma and flames.

"Sonic!" Eclipse tried to reach him but missed.

"Go!" shouted Sonic, telling him to ignore his fall. Eclipse clenched his fist. This was the first time he cooperated with him and he enjoyed it. He hoped he will be ok. He put his sight before him… locking at the big green eye.

"Stupid monster! Stupid end of the world!" He put all of his strength in legs and run. He overcame last meters in a matter of secs. Then he finally stood before his goal. "Break already!" Alien transformed into his monster form and redirected all remaining super power in his right arm and trusted it down to the shoulder in the center of the eye. For a few seconds, the monster was completely silent, before it burst in roars and his body was crumbling, taking Eclipse down with it. Black Arms left his monster skin and tried to grab on something to slow down his fall.

* * *

[Zilver Vs Zephiles]

* * *

Zephiles was about to be free from his imperfect imprisonment. He knew it can't hold him for too long, he will fulfill his dream… his destiny… he would… if he didn't witness a death of his brother. His eyes widen and he made unrealistic shriek with his actual voice from the mouth ripping thru his face. Zilver was unaffected, but Silver was shivering even more. Unimaginable coldness filled him from inside… he felt death… or what death must feel like.

Once Iblis' body crumbled the chains meant for him were redirected to Zephiles. Zilver approached him with a psychic sword in his hand. It was sparkling and Zephiles was struggling to free himself. His body went thru metamorphosis, changing his body to look more like Shadow, but still keeping a reference to Zilver. Cybernetic hedgehog raised his sword. His eyes were so cold, he looked like a machine.

"No!" Shouted Silver and stood between them spreading his limbs. He was heavily breathing and sweating. "This is wrong! Stop!" Zilver didn't move. "He did terrible things but he…" Zephiles shriek once more making Silver turn to him. He frozen as Zephile's face was mirroring the purest hatred he could ever encounter. It was an image that will be burned into his memory forever. He crossed arms in front of his face, but Zephile's spit still landed on him, just before he was dragged underground to be sealed for all eternity.

Silver fell on a butt, breathing like crazy. He didn't even notice he lost his super form just a moment ago. Zilver was still standing behind him with his sword ready to strike. And it didn't look like he will put it down without shedding a blood.

* * *

[Knuckles' group]

* * *

"Are… you alright?" asked Tikal. The sealing was over, but the burden on their souls and bodies was big. Everyone was laying on the floor, panting.

"Did we…?" started to ask Eggman, but he had no breath for the rest of it.

"Yes, we succeeded."

No one shown any happiness, they were too tired for it. Crack was the first one to stood up. His head was spinning and his system was showing weird messages, but he felt otherwise fine. He gradually looked at others, getting their life scans. "Hey, Rouge… she has weird readings!" he said aloud and clumsily came to her.

"What?!" Tikal flew to her. "Did she…?" She was afraid of the worst.

"Don't tell me." Knuckles get on all four and looked at her, but her face was turned away from him.

Crack took her in his arms and made an even deeper scan. "She is still breathing." That was a big relief.

"She pushed too hard," said Tikal. "When Iblis was killed, she sent all of her life energy into the sealing process."

"Will she be alright?" asked Knuckles, that slowly came closer.

"Well, she seems to be just unconscious," answered Crack, and took her in his arms.

"Let's go to the surface," said Eggman. "Maybe there is something we can do."

* * *

[Eclipse and Sonic]

* * *

"Auch..." muttered Eclipse as he was waking up. His body was aching like hell, he had bruises on bruises and his stomach was rumbling like crazy. He looked around. His body was laying on a big molten rock, definitely a piece of Iblis' armor, many other pieces were all around him just a few inches away. He slowly got up, noticing his left arm was literally stuck in one stone as he was desperate to slow his fall. It hurt like hell too and he could tell his wrist is at least badly hurt or even broken, but he was still able to move it a bit.

His legs were scratched all over. After this, he will need at least one week of good rest. "Sonic!" He called his teammate. "Where are you? Answer me so I know where I can eat you!" A small stone landed on his head. "Hey!" He looked up.

"I'm still kicking," grinned at him blue hedgehog.

"I always preferred fresh, raw meat anyway."

They started to grin at each other. "Hey, look!" Sonic pointed at the sky. The clouds were gone, neither of them noticed when it stopped to rain or when the sky cleared. "It's full-moon." Eclipse's stomach rumbled. "Don't you dare to come closer," shouted Sonic at him.

"O'rly?" Eclipse started to climb, ignoring a pain in his limbs until he was next to Sonic. "You okay, buddy?"

Sonic looked at his legs. "I can still stand and after while I should be able to run."

"Good, I like a light warm up before a snack."

What started as small giggling ended up in a big burst of laughter. They were so happy to be alive.

* * *

[Silver's location]

* * *

Silver's breathing finally calmed down a bit. He was still shaken up. Zephiles' last moments will haunt his dreams for months if not years, he was sure of that. It was about a few minutes since he was noticing a shadow on the ground that belonged to Zilver. He knew he was still holding a sword, ready to strike, but he had no courage to look at him. He felt his cold glare.

Zilver's hand twitched and the sword fell down, piercing the flesh. Silver looked back, terrified by the scene before his eyes. The fresh blood was dripping from the weapon. Zilver's eyes were shaking. The blood was coming from black hedgehog's palm, as he caught the weapon in the last sec before it stabbed the psychic from his future.

"Zilver, did you just-!" Silver shouted, before noticing Shadow's fur was soaked in the blood. "W-What happened to you?"

"Just new hole in the stomach, you will get used to it."

"NO. I. WON'T!" Silver was about to erupt. "Stay here, I'll get first aid!"

"I don't plan on going anywhere."

"If you see the light in the tunnel, ignore it!" shouted Silver from the air.

Shadow and Zilver were left alone. Zilver's eyes were staring at the ground, unable to look at his master.

"What was this about?!" Shadow was growing, but Zilver had no answer. The sword in his hand slowly dissolved. "Did you just tried to commit suicide?" Zilver fell on his knees. "Answer me!" ordered him Shadow.

]How… can I live… after what I have done?[ whispered Zilver. Anyone could tell from his voice he was in abysmal depression.

"Shits happens, it's up to you if you let it burrow you." Shadow's words were cold but true. He knew what it means very well. "So get up! You still have two legs to walk on."

Zilver lifted his head, his eyes were full of tears, falling down. The small ray of rising sun fell on his face, turning it gold. The long nightmare was gone... When Silver returned with the first aid he brought from Eggman's robot, Zilver was laying on the ground sleeping on Shadow's lap.

* * *

[One week later]

* * *

Silver was sitting in the park on the Angel Island, looking at playing children. It was like a dream... just a few days ago they were fighting for survival and now... everything was so quite. Only a few bruises reminded him, what he went thru. He wished he could erase his own memories, to forget the painful memories of others he had to see.

Should he tell it to the others? They wouldn't hold a grudge for it, right? It wasn't his mistake, right? He never wanted it, right? With every 'right' he felt growing depression inside of him, that reflected on his face. But he shouldn't worry about himself, he was more worried about Zilver. For the past of a couple of days, he was completely silent and distant.

Silver tried to talk with him, but he got only a few 'hmm' answers. Shadow ended up in the hospital. It was the miracle he was still alive with the hole in his stomach. Silver remembers seeing Zilver's hand all covered by blood... he couldn't, right? Silver started to bite his thumb. There was no way, he is going to ask any of them. Zilver wouldn't probably answer him, and Shadow... let's be honest, he was too afraid to ask him since the atmosphere around his room was deadly cold.

He got up and decided to visit Rouge, as she was hospitalized as well. Thankfully she was only exhausted and she sustained no serious injury. He spent in her room at least one hour and he was glad she was joking, proving her condition is much better now. Next on his visit list was Sonic... if he was in his room. That little rascal, as a nurse called him, run away as soon he got his shoes.

Silver then went on the roof to have some time for himself, when the door to the rooftop opened. "Yo," greeted him Eclipse. His right arm was bandaged like it was broken.

"The nurse will be angry at you," Silver smiled at him and they exchanged fist bump.

Eclipse sat beside him. "Whatever, my arm is already OK, why don't they get it?!" he angrily said.

"Let just be on the safe side. How are Darklings?"

"They are fine, they are sleeping in my room. They stuffed themselves to the sleep."

Silver giggled. For a while, they were watching a town before them. "So… you will be leaving soon, huh?" asked the alien.

"Yes, I still have to find the third Bits."

"Don't forget to visit here and there so we can have another saving-the-world-rumble," he said while grinning.

"Come on, can't I just visit for a tea?"

They exchanged another fist bump. "Don't forget to train your body too, 'kay? Or I'm taking you for a bit-e of training."

Silver only grinned, then the nurse came and took Eclipse to his room, ignoring his claims of being healthy. Silver took to the sky, feeling evening's wind in his quills. He decided to visit professor Eggman and Knuckles. They were making the new body for Crack, or more like Eggman was doing all the job while Knuckles was keeping Crack entertained as his A.I. did more than just one prank in the system already.

Him causing problems meant he was doing OK. That was all Silver needed. With his flying, it took only a couple of minutes to get there. He landed on the roof and find his way to the laboratory. There he found a surprising quest. "Sonic?"

"Silver! You came just in time!" Blue hedgehog jumped around his neck.

"What's up? Is there a competition in bending spoons?"

"Something better! I can run!" Sonic jumped back.

"But didn't you run-"

"I can run supersonic fast! My legs no longer hurt!"

Silver was finally able to grasp the meaning of his words. "But that's totally amazing! How's that happened?"

"Will you let me explain?" asked Eggman, that was watching them for a while and was holding few papers. "It seems the chaos energy that caused the transformation, repaired his damaged muscle and bone's structure to its previous state... or even better if I may say so."

"It truly is a miracle," said Knuckles. Next to him was orange female floating in the air.

"Eh..." Silver looked at her surprised as this was their first meeting.

"Please, allow me to introduce you two," said Knuckles and gestured his hand, "Tikal, this is Silver the hedgehog, young psychic and big hero," named hedgehog blushed a lot, "Silver, this is Tikal, a spirit of great hero that helped to seal Mephiles... Zephiles millenniums ago."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Tikal shook hands with Silver... figuratively speaking. "Everyone told me how you helped to save this world. No words of gratitude could-"

"It's okay," Silver interrupted her, as he was blushing even more, "everyone would do the same thing." He scratched his quills. "Ah, prof. Eggman, how is...?"

"Now you remember?" asked familiar voice and metallic hedgehog came closer. He looked similar to his old design with few different details. His ears were longer and five head quills had yellow tips and two lines at each and redesign to look more like a star if looked from the front. The upper part of all limbs was as well more robust-looking. On the back, he had now only one rocket instead of two, and despite looking smaller it was more powerful. What he kept the same was his face, circle emblem and bare metal parts on his limbs. "Yo, psyching up, buddy?"

Silver smiled, as Crack just said the first sentence he ever said to him. "Welcome back, buddy."

* * *

[Few more days later]

* * *

"So you are leaving," said Rouge. She was sitting in a wheelchair, but looking good. Next to her was Shadow, his stomach was still bandaged, but a doctor said he miraculously healed. Thanks to his Black Arms' blood no less. His hand was resting on Rouge's shoulder. Just a step away was Knuckles and Eggman with his robot helper, that got a new body as well.

"I wish you a safe journey," said Tikal floating next to Echidna.

"Don't forget to visit, 'kay?" reminded him Eclipse and Darklings were repeating his world in their own language.

"Yeah, and tell the other Sonic to try sweet potatoes instead of these crappy hotdogs!"

Behind the group, next to the tree was standing Zilver. His face was gloomy. Silver smiled a bit and used his psychic abilities to pull him closer. "Don't stand there like that." Zilver immediately started to look at the ground. "Everything's fine now, so stop worrying about it."

]But still...[

"Nobody here holds a grudge against you. You did your best and you helped us a lot. And you are more confident in yourself than I ever was."

"And ever will," added jokingly Crack and whistled once Silver looked at him.

"So, cheer up. What you want to do now since Iblis is gone?"

]Well,[ he slightly rose his head, ]master said, I can stay at this time.[

"I don't know, time traveling is tricky, but give it a try."

"Are you leaving or having a sappy dialog?" asked obviously annoyed Shadow.

Silver awkwardly smile. "Well, takes care everyone!" Silver made Genesis portal leading to the last Bits and jumped in there and Crack followed soon enough and the portal closed.

"They are gone, huh?" Eclipse scratched himself.

"Finally I can have some quiet moment for myself," Shadow snorted and walked away.

"It's just me, or is he more grumpy than usual?" Eclipse shrugged and walked away. Rest of the group followed as they started to walk on their own paths.

To be continued…

* * *

So, sorry for such long delay, hope you enjoy this chapter thou :-) Next time will be a prologs of all (or almost all) characters, but then the story will go on hiatus. I haven't finished the next (a lot smaller) arc and I don't want to leave a cliffhanger (... like I did already few times ^_^;). I will try to write it down in next month or so, but if you are impatient, drop me a PM and I'll try to answer asap :-)


	13. Epilogue 1 - Sonic & Shadow

"You know, that was one wild ride I won't forget as long as I live," said Sonic to Shadow. They were standing at the edge of the canyon whose end was somewhere behind the horizon.

"You are telling me?" Shadow fixed his gloves. It was now more than one month since the battle ended and the peacefulness felt more like a distant dream than a reality.

"You know…" started Sonic, "do you remember… well, you should, you were the smartest hedgehog in the school… so, that day when we… um, what I wanna say…"

"Spit it out, or I'm helping you." Shadow showed him clenched fist.

"Fine! Sorry for calling you a faker!" Sonic put hands before him.

Shadow frown and snorted. "No biggie, forget it."

"Even if you say it, I can't believe I still called you that like you are some back-stabbing bastard."

"I said no… wait a… you mean?" Shadow looked at him confused.

"What? I called you that 'cause I thought you are like the rest of my so-called friends that just abandoned me when I lost my speed."

"Really?!" Black hedgehog almost jumped. "Do you mean it?"

"'Course, what you thought I meant by it?" Sonic sure looked surprised.

"I thought you called me that way 'cause I'm artificially created."

Sonic's jaw dropped. "You are… what?" Shadow briefly told him his story. Sonic made a long hmm sound, then he smiled. "I knew it! I knew you can't be a normal hedgehog! No common hedgehog could ever keep up with me!"

Shadow made sly smile. "Keep up, huh? You sure?"

Sonic smiled too. "Wanna bet?"

"I'll see you at the and of the canyon!" shouted Shadow and got ready.

"Not if I get there first!" With these words, they started to run. Both had a small smile on their face. Their misunderstanding was solved and peace returned to their hearts.

'Maria, I have made my first friend,' thought black hedgehog and when he was running along stone pillar, he glimpsed a young blonde girl's smile. He wanted to stop and turn, but at the same moment, he felt a gentle touch on his back pushing him forward.

'Uncle, I'm sorry I've caused you so much trouble, but I'm fine now,' thought blue hedgehog and when he was running along stone pillar, he glimpsed an older blue hedgehog smiling at him. He wanted to stop and turn, but at the same moment, he felt a gentle touch on his back pushing him forward.

'I'll keep running for the future,' thought hedgehogs in unison.


	14. Epilogue 2 - Eclipse & Shadow

Black hedgehog and his alien brother were laying on the roof of Eclipse's house watching the stars. Eclipse couldn't remember the last time they did it… or if they ever did it to be precious. It sure felt strange… and relaxing. Their relationship was mostly about fighting, and when they have met, it was usually about Eclipse doing small favors for him. Like beating some punks making a havoc in his territory.

Since the battle… Eclipse hasn't stopped thinking about how Shadow spared his life or how he actually saved Darklings. Without him, they would be death. He sat up, and Shadow slightly looked at him. "If you wanna say something, say it," growled the hedgehog as he felt the tension too.

"Easy for you to say, or maybe you have something to say too?"

Shadow looked up at the stars. "Meaning?"

"The pavilion in the park… or sewers…"

It took Shadow only few sec to hide his shock, but it was obvious Eclipse knew about it. "How?" he averted eyes.

"I saw it during the time you were in the crystal. Somehow I saw that memory before Silver found me."

Shadow clenched his fists and teeth. It sure was one of the memories he wanted to keep hidden at all costs. "And? What's are you gonna do about it?"

Eclipse didn't answer, after a few seconds he stood up. "Come with me." Shadow followed him to the attic and entered there first. Even before he could see all the plush teddy bears his emotion-sensor picked up a strong signal. Eclipse climbed up after him staying near the entrance. "Bros shouldn't keep secrets from each other, don't you think?"

Shadow picked one toy and looked around. He smiled a bit. "I can see, you are still keeping that one." He meant the old ragged bear.

"Yeah."

Both were silent for a while before Shadow said: "Who would think you would turn into such softie?" He turned to him, showing a small smile.

"What?" Eclipse grinned. "The only thing turnin' soft will be your face once I punch it enough."

Shadow put back the toy, and they ran outside, and they fought until they were exhausted.

Laying next to each on the wet grass, heavily breathing and watching the sky turn red.

"I'm not sure… why I decided to help you," Shadow started to talk. "At first I saw you as an enemy, as another punk to beat, but somehow… once we clashed few times and you ran away, I picked many… familiar smells from you."

"So, it means you have the same emotion-sensor like me, huh? I thought that could be the case, but it still made no sense to me."

"That makes two of us. Anyway, once you and Darklings got separated in the river that smell got stronger, I could hardly see anything else… absolute despair… hopelessness… something I know well." Eclipse turned his head toward the hedgehog and noticed his eyes were… soft… or more like distant… and what more… they were showing how much pain he had inside.

"So without much thinking, I have found your wisps and relocated them to the area that was already searched. Then I mislead the soldiers before I could finally go after you. Seeing you sleeping, exhausted with no hope or a way to escape, with your fate being in someone else hands… at that moment I have realized how much we have in common."

Eclipse looked back at the sky. The sun was rising, and stars were slowly disappearing. It always made him a bit sad as the stars reminded him his old home.

"I'll let you know this I don't feel bad about killing Black Doom, your master, and the rest of Black Arms." This comment hurt Eclipse a lot. "But neither a good about it." That was surprising a bit. "You attacked my territory, so I kicked you out, simple as that. Having the same bloodline… well, that was unexpected."

Eclipse said nothing he only felt slightly warm feeling in his heart. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.  
Once he woke up... or rather he was awakened by Blurg's breathing at his face since Dark Arms joined them. Shadow was still sleeping. Eclipse again closed the eyes and let the wind carry away all his worries.


	15. Epilogue 3 - Rogue & Shadow (1)

"I now pronounce you the hedgehog and the bat. The groom may kiss the bride," said the bear priest standing before Rouge in quite a sexy wedding dress and Shadow in a tuxedo. The hedgehog lifted the short veil and gently pressed his lips to hers. Everybody was clapping.  
His alien brother was his best man and he had a tuxedo despite constantly complaining about it being constricting. Darklings were here sitting on the chairs. Rouge's bridesmaid was Tikal. Omega was there as well, and Rouge could hear his electrical circuit "squeak" a lot as he was counting all the "trash" a.k.a confetti, he had to let lay on the ground.

Many of their friends were present like Knuckles, professor Eggman, Sonic and even Metal Sonic. It wasn't a big wedding after all, as Shadow was a bit anti-social but the small smile on his face has shown he is happy right now. He liked Rouge for some time now but had no will to confess to her. It was thanks to the Iblis event he found the courage as being immortal has many downsides nevertheless, nothing of that mattered now.

Shadow and Rouge went outside of the small church, and more confetti was raining on them from all sides. Omega couldn't hold it anymore and went into full cleaning mode, causing quite a panic as he was cleaning even the people around. No shouting or ordering could stop him now. Shadow took Rouge in his arms and skillfully avoided big robots brooms. Whoever could do the same. Among the screams appeared laughter as the scene became more of comedy.

Eclipse and Darklings were sitting on a tree branch enjoying the view. He, after all, had a bit of sadistic nature, but once someone's cry became too loud, he decided to help. Soon the people were hanging on the trees in the park or Zilver hold them with his power. Yes, he was here too. He was hiding in the background, silently watching.

Even if no one had ill will towards him, he couldn't forgive himself so easily. If it wasn't for his master younger self and Silver, he could destroy the world he wanted to restore. They haven't just got Mephiles out of his body, they as well saved his life. Nothing in the world could ever repay this debt. He sat the last wedding hosts on the branches and looked to the horizon.

It was this way Shadow took Rouge. It's their honeymoon after all. Zilver… blushed a lot. He knew there is new path before them and he should find a new purpose as well. It will be long one, but just like Shadow said… every journey starts with a first small step.


	16. Epilogue 4 - Zilver

The morning was there, the sun was slowly appearing from behind the mountains. Zilver was already up and having a small breakfast – simple toast. Now he could eat anything he wanted, but first, he has to get used to it. The dining room was part of a small kitchen. The house had two more rooms – living room and bedroom and of course toilet and bathroom. This house was located at the Angel Island.

He looked at the clock. He still had more than an hour before he had to go, but he went outside as he still hasn't seen the whole island. The weather was nice all year round. The breeze went thru his quills. He was living near the edge of the floating island so he had no neighbors. He could fly, but he decided to simply take a walk.

He walked slowly and carefully observed his surroundings. He recognized many plants he saw only in the books. He could spend hours watching just one flower. He loved every corner of this wonderful land, only one place he had a problem to go – the center. The center was full of people and his destination was laying there – it was two weeks since he started to attend a high school.

Sure, he went here to find a help, but he didn't have to talk with so many people… it was just different. Now he is in the center of everyone's attention. For now, he always had to have a nice walk to calm down to actually enter the city. There was just so… much to see and hear, it was almost scaring him. Thankfully, since it was so early in the morning, not many people were outside.

"Good morning, Zilver!" called him old lady that owned a small shop.

]Good morning,[ replied Zilver and made slight nod. This way he met and exchanged few formalities with other civilians before he reached the school ground.

"Yo, Zilver!" shouted at him female bat and his classmate.

]Good mornin-kah![ he coughed as she hit him in the back.

"Put more spirit into it, or you will stay gloomy all life!" She was Zilver's opposite – cheerful, easygoing and constantly smiling. She was the first student to talk with him and she often dragged him to participate in school events. He still couldn't decide if she is helping him or torturing him. He smiled a bit. "C'mon, you promised to help me with a math!" She reminded him a promise he was kinda forced to make.

]Yeah,[ together they walked toward library where they learned. Zilver was unsure with many things, but the path was still before him so he had no reason to rush.


	17. Epilogue 5 - Rogue & Shadow (2)

Shadow was standing on the balcony of a hotel he took his bride. His heart was beating like crazy. He knew making any deeper bond with someone was a mistake. They will grow old… and die, while he will remain young and full of energy. How could he agree with it?! He clenched his fists, almost ripping his gloves.

"Shadow?" Rouge's voice was gentle. "You are worried if this was the right choice, aren't you?" Bull's eye! This was one of the reasons he kept Rouge so close. She could see right thru him. It was causing him a great deal of uneasiness and yet… it was like a drug he couldn't live without. Reminding him he is in fact just a simple hedgehog. She hugged him from behind. He felt she had a simple dress. He didn't resist, only his heart sped up a lot. They stayed like that for a while, before she said: "Do you regret that?"

"… No."

"Yet you do."

He gently pushed her back moving from her for few steps. "It's just… I'm immortal, while you…"He curled up a bit tightly hugging his chest like he was trying to keep his heart inside and lock it even deeper.

"I know, you silly." She laid her head on his shoulder. "And I don't care."

"But you will grow old, while I…"

She gently took his head in her palms and said: "Never say a lady how old she will grow, or she may do something painful to you," her playful tone make him smile a bit. "Do you think I would say yes if I minded it?"

Shadow averted his look into the room. "No, you wouldn't."

"Actually there is one or two more things I didn't tell you yet."

"You don't need to."

She shook her head gently. "It's alright. Since I'll be by your side for a while I want you to know everything about me." She took a deep breath. "You are my second love."

"The first one was your partner, right?" he said without thinking. "Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"It's alright. It's obvious you would know a thing or two about your employees. It was no big secret anyway." She stepped away and looked at the garden outside of the hotel. "We were great partners and when I lost him, I had no idea what I'll do. Getting back to being thief was out of the option as I lost the ability to fly for long distance."

Shadow looked at her scar near of her wing. It was still visible. She continued: "You found me, offered me a job without asking much questions. I was planning to use it as a chance to keep a low profile, but no plan goes without few setbacks." She giggled a bit and sat on the stone railing, looking at Shadow. "Sometime later I discovered I found my new love, but that someone had no interest in accepting it." Shadow felt a bit guilty. "I understood it perfectly, yet I secretly hoped it will work out someday, even if it was naive."

"You are not a naive person."

She smiled and said, "Certainly not, as my dream came true after all." They watched each other in silent a bit before she spoke again: "And the second thing… is pretty recent discovery. You don't have to worry about me to live short life anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"You see… when I helped to seal Zephiles, I pushed a bit harder than I should and…"

Shadow grabbed her around shoulders and shouted: "Are you alright? If you feel unwell I'll call doctors!"

His honest concern made her smile. "It's nothing like that," she put her hand on his arm.

"Then what?!"

"I'll tell you if you let me finish." Shadow felt bit ashamed, to lose his self-control like that. He let her go, so she could continue. "At that time we were supposed to seal both monsters, but your brother killed Iblis, leaving us only Zephiles. The ancient heroes sacrificed their lives when they did so." Shadow got goosebumps from it. "With this and Tikal's help, we were able to seal Zephiles without losing our lives." Shadow clenched his fists. Yet again he was so close to lost someone important and he did nothing to stop it. "Since I pushed the hardest, the extra energy bounced back into me."

"But it didn't hurt you, did it?"

Rouge shook her head. "No, but it did change me. Right now… from that moment my time flows slowly."

"Your time?" Shadow's eye widened. "Slowly?"

She smiled. "Yes, I'm not immortal, but I won't be leaving your side anytime soon." She jumped down and took dumbstruck Shadow to the room. "So, stop worrying about future too much or you will miss everything right before you."

He made little sad smile. "You… You are right."

They sat on the soft luxury looking bed. "So, how tough you are in this department, Mr. hedgehog?" she impishly winked at him.

Shadow made sly smile. "That's what I am about to show you." They laid down.

"Shadow, just promise me, you won't forget… I'll always be by your side."

Shadow said nothing, only gently kissed her on the lips.


	18. Epilogue 6 - Eclipse

Once Shadow and Rouge left for their honeymoon, he made a big decision. Once he was sure Dark Arms were sleeping, he headed to the place he never thought he would seek out. He stood at a cliff and looked at the Central city. He wasn't worried about the city, but about the place near to it – the G.U.N. Headquarters.

He already knew this is insane, but he felt he has to do it. After the fight with Iblis, he started to notice, his life is missing any meaning now… no, it was like that before too, he just tried to ignore it. He got closer to the outer walls of the human fortress without using chaos abilities. They definitely had the chaos radar on standby, ready to pick him up. He was planning to enter and leave without a fuss. He climbed a tall wall after he made sure there is no surveillance camera.

Once he was about to reach the top, he used his "feelings" sensor to find out soldiers positions. Good, they were enough far from him to sneak inside. He quickly overcame the wall and traveled along it until he had a chance to move deeper thanks to few parked cars. His other problem was the searchlights that were constantly moving, controlled by computers. He had to avoid them for any cost or it will set off an alarm. The fact he came with a peaceful goal in his mind won't help him much as he is the most unwanted guest on this planet.

He watched the pattern the lights were moving for a while, noticing there are few places the light didn't touch while other spots provided about three seconds place without it. It was worth of the try. Eclipse had to time it right or he will be toast. 'Now!' He jumped from his hideout, dancing among the lights avoiding it and constantly progressing. After long thirty seconds sprint, he finally hit the opposite wall, where he caught his breath before climbing it.

It belonged to the first building on his way to his destination. He carefully observed his surroundings before proceeding. Since now he had more obstacles he could hide behind, his quickly overcome the distance and stood just a few meters from his goal. And now he had a big problem. He was clinging to the wall next to a wide window, behind it was commander's office and it was only slightly lighted.

'How should I get there? There has to be alarm…' He facepalmed himself 'Heck, I don't even know if the one inside is him! So much to the plan, maybe I should… '

"Who's there?" asked voice from inside.

"Just your friendly man-eating alien from the neighborhood!" Eclipse panicked and said it without thinking. 'W-What the heck… I just said?'

"The window is open," said the voice again.

Eclipse gulped and gently slide the window. Alien jumped inside and closed after himself. The room was quite big, the walls were hidden behind many bookshelves and the rest of the free space was decorated by pictures or maps. Nearest to the windows was a big and long table, it looked heavy and full of papers. Eclipse noticed a small photo of a blonde girl and a boy, while the man was standing on the opposite side of the room.

"Care for some tea?" asked commander. He looked old and weak, but Eclipse could tell he will not give his skin easily. Just like all the soldiers he encountered in the past.

"Thanks," he said only and watched as commander named Abraham Tower prepared the tea. He was the boy from the photo as he had the same mismatching eyes of green and brown color. The man poured the tea in the cups placed on a small conference table. Once it was done, Tower sat on one side, while Eclipse took the other one. Alien took a sip from his tea, finding it belongs to his most favorite brand.

"Congratulation on getting here undetected by soldiers," said the human after a while.

"You still don't look surprised."

"Don't underestimate G.U.N. just because we are short living humans, our equipment is the state of the art. We knew of your presence, our radars are made to pick any abnormality."

"Then why didn't you sound the alarm? Why did you let me in?" Eclipse was frustrated.

"We know of your recent help during the world crisis."

"You mean Iblis? But how?"

"We were informed before hand and made necessary preparation in a case of evacuation and closing the area around Lost Valley."

"Fine, but I'm still Black Arms." He took a sip and thought: 'Who could have said it? Was it brother? He did cooperate with G.U.N. before.'

"We are aware of that."

"You don't make sense." Eclipse took another sip.

"Neither an enemy sneaking into our headquarters to have a tea." Eclipse made sour smile. He was well aware now how stupid his plan actually was. "You came here without hurting anyone and I want to know why."

Eclipse nervously fidgeted before he said: "To fix the number in a census?" He was looking away.

Abraham put his cup down and headed to his desk, where he searched a while before putting few photos in front of Eclipse. His eyes widen. "B-But?!" He was looking at himself in the arena and he knew when these pictures were made. He clenched his fists, almost crushing the handle of the cup. "So you knew… You knew I was still alive all these years! Why didn't you come after me?"

"What I'm about to tell is top secret information, nothing must get out of this room."

"Get on with it."

Abraham took another sip, before continuing: "When Shadow took care of you I had a hunch it wasn't as in "being dead". I had no proof, until one month later when my informants discovered you. When I comforted Shadow with it, he didn't move a muscle, making it obvious he doesn't care." Abraham took a breath. "Of course I had no intention leaving you to him, but we had to avoid a mass panic."

"So you made sure to keep an eye on me, huh? I bet few of these punks I have beaten were send by you, huh?" Tower only nodded. "So, what kept you from killing me? There had to be tons of opportunities."

"There were, Shadow as well provided us shorts report of you progress in assimilating with society."

"Well, I had to go by some way." Eclipse had to survive so keeping a low profile and not killing anyone was one way how to do it. Not to mention at that time he wanted to kill Shadow first before taking the rest of the world.

"With this and our own observation, we concluded you are a threat but it's not necessary to take immediate action."

"I'm flattered," commented it Eclipse slightly sarcastic. 'But man, this guy is something. I could probably kill him in one or two moves, yet he is not even nervous. He must have a strong will. No wonder his soldiers were such pests to deal with.'

"So what brings you here?"

Eclipse jerked and started to watch the rest of his tea in the cup. "Well, it's just…" he stopped, how the heck he can continue? "… looking for part-time job…" Tower didn't react. Eclipse barked: "You know what? Forget it! It's stupid anyway!" He put the cup at the table. "Thanks for the tea." He headed to the window when commander said:

"We are always looking for capable candidates."

Eclipse stopped. "Among the humans, right?"

"Race has nothing to do with your abilities. You have already proven yourself."

"Seriously?" he looked carefully back.

"Stopping or moving forward… it's your decision to make."

Eclipse fully turned toward Abraham. "You would really accept me?"

"If you can accept it." Abraham looked at him. There was no hatred or disguise.

[Two months later]

"Congratulation, agent Eclipse," commander looked at the results of alien's test. "There was no doubt you won't pass a physical test with flying colors, but your knowledge about this planet is as well outstanding."

"Well, I did want to destroy it so knowing how it ticks looked pretty helpful to me," Eclipse made small grin and shrugged. He was now wearing a special G.U.N uniform made for his special needs and equipment. It had lots of pockets and the fabric was wind and waterproof and had better heat control than anything else. Dark arms were part of it too, passing endurance tests as well.

"The only thing that remains now is to assign you, two partners."

Eclipse gulped. All the training and lessons and tests he spent with few chosen humans. No other soldiers had the slightest idea there is Black Arms among them. 'Come on, you can do it. Just remember, the first impression is important, so don't blow it.' Someone knocked the doors, making Eclipse jerk.

"Come in," said commander. The door slowly opened. Eclipse shouted:

"Bro Shadow?!"

Black hedgehog stopped with eyes wide open. "Eclipse? What are you doing here?!"

"Me?! What about you!"

Hedgehog growled and looked at Abraham. "What's the meaning of this?!"

Human calmly answered: "Agent Eclipse came here two weeks before you did with a request for a part-time job."

"Why didn't you tell me about it?"

Eclipse nervously fidgeted. "Well, you seemed busy and all, so I didn't want to bother you and… I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, not just beating some punks."

Shadow put hands in pockets. "Fine, you are not a baby anymore."

"I was never a baby!"

Brothers made a small smile.

]It seems I came last,[ said Zilver.

"You too?!" shouted Shadow and Eclipse in unison.

"This day just has to be one of the crazy ones, doesn't it?" Shadow shook his head. Zilver was as well wearing G.U.N. uniform showing he as well joined. Zilver closed the doors and Abraham gave them their first mission. Some crazy doctor named Snively was causing problems and they were sent to investigate it.

"… and from this day on, you will operate under the code name Team…"

"Black Arms," interrupted him Shadow. "Cause we are going to be Black Arms for anyone standing in our way."

"Alright, Team Black Arms, get ready, your mission starts in half of the hour."

With this, they walked outside. "No complain about me being the leader?" asked Shadow on their way to the armory.

"No, you sure know how to handle your subordinates."

]I agree, I'm far too inexperienced to lead.[

Shadow made a small smile. "Then let's move on."

[Sometime later]

"What do you want to spit out? Names or your guts?" asked grinning Eclipse manacled soldier, that was more than horrified. Soon he got what he wanted with some extra bonus in the shape of addresses. "This never fails," alien was in good mood.

]I see, uncle Eclipse,[ Zilver looked at the unconscious enemy soldier.

"Have you hacked into the computer?" asked Shadow, that was polishing his personal gun.

]I'm almost there, Master, his firewalls are exceptional.[ The young cybernetic psychic was sitting and the cables from his head, that he used to recharge himself with chaos energy, now functioned as access to the digital world, where he used his mind to manipulates data. He was always carrying with him a portable computer that he used for this if there was nothing else available. ]I'm in! Now I'll download the access codes in a sec.[

"Good, at this rate we can finish this before the dinner and have a time for dessert before we will have to do reports," said Eclipse happily.

"Don't count your strawberry cakes before you bake them," noted Shadow. "Our enemy is cunning and has lots of robots at his dispose of so it may take a while."

]I was able to get the rough land plan of this place,[ Zilver uploaded the information into tech-googles they were wearing. It showed useful information about their surroundings with an ability to zoom in on anything.

"Now we are ready, want to review anything about our plan?" asked Shadow.

"No, I'm ready to go."

]Me as well.[

"Okay, Team Black Arms, let's roll!"


	19. Boom-bastic adventure (part 1)

"Kuch…" gasped Silver as he fell from the portal. "What was that?" He looked over his shoulder. Crack was nowhere to be seen. He stood up still feeling bit dizzy. He traveled thru many portals, but this was the first time it felt so long and wrong. Like it was twisted in some way. "I hope Crack is okay." He leaned against a wooden wall. It seemed he landed in some village, but thankfully no one noticed his strange entrance.

He peeked out, seeing most inhabitants look like him, just being bit taller. 'They seem to be friendly,' he thought, seeing happy Walrus family walking down the street. Suddenly he heard screams and explosions. "Is someone attacking this place?!" He didn't wait and flew up to see.

"Greetings villagers, Dr. Eggman is back to conquer this place!" It was the notorious evil genius, standing in his egg-mobile and robotics ladybugs and wasps were flying around him, shooting lasers.

"Stop it, Eggman!" shouted Silver, flying few meters in front of him.

"Who the heck are you? Some new super hero? Get lost and let professionals do the job." Eggman had no interest in fighting with him. "Shoo, shoo."

"He is right, you can get hurt!" called him an old monkey.

"We can wait for true heroes! Get out of there!"

Silver made sour smile.

"You heard them, so don't stand in my way of destruction." Eggman pressed joysticks of his vehicle, ready to move.

"Well, sorry, I don't know about professional heroes, but I know how to deal with these pesky robots on my own!" He made smirk and the dozen of robots was engulfed in a light blue aura, immediately shorted.

"What?! Like seriously! No way!" Eggman was angry. "No way you could take them down faster than that meddlesome hedgehog!"

"Hedgehog?" Silver put the robots into one pile.

"There is cooler hedgehog than Sonic?" asked one citizen the other.

"He sure looks cool," answered the one back.

Eggman heard that and immediately had a plan. He yelled in a panic: "Oh no! I sure hope you won't become the hero of this village! That way I would never conquer it! Retreat!" With this, he flew away. Silver looked bit confused. That sure was unexpected from him.

People below him were cheering him and waving at him. Silver flew down. "Are you alright?" he asked them.

"Fin~~e," answered goat girl.

"You are our hero!" stated Walrus mother.

"You are so cool," said her son.

"Please be our hero!" asked another villager.

Silver wanted to answer something, but the crowd got thicker and closer. He flew up. "Thank you, I'm glad you are okay and no problem. Anyone would do the same."

"He is so modest!"

"Now if you excuse me," he flew away.

"He is surely going to fight another criminal."

"He is so brave."

Once Silver was off, Sonic and his team got there.

"Hey, Eggface, it's time to— lunch break?" his eyes fell on the pile of robots. "What gives? We got the word Eggman is attacking. What happened?"

"You are too slow," said mouse major. "Eggman's robots were beaten by a silver hedgehog. All at once. He was faster than you."

"Faster! No one is faster than me!" He pointed at himself.

"Where did he go?" asked Tails.

"He flew away to fight another criminal no less," major turned away and headed somewhere else.

"Now that's interesting. I wonder who he was?" asked Amy.

"Whoever it was, he smells fishy."

Knuckles sniffed around. "I don't smell any fish."

"Maybe it's evil secret agent from twisted dimension ready to lullaby us to a false sense of security to throw marshmallow heated in the toaster at us!" yelled Sticks one of her crazy theory, and no one was paying much attention to it.

"Hey, he can be a good guy too, let's not be pessimistic," noted Amy.

"And what about the green dude on a skateboard? That was Eggman's robot."

"Didn't major said he was silver?" asked Knuckles.

"Sonic is talking about the multi-robot we have fought," reminded him it Tails.

"I don't remember fighting a multi-colored silver robot. Heck, I don't remember what I had tomorrow for a dinner."

His teammates only shook their heads.

"I suggest to wait and see who this silver hedgehog is," ended the discussion, Amy.

Sonic was mumbling something silently. He will show that weird hedgehog who is the coolest here.

* * *

[Bygone Island – forest]

'So I ended up in the parallel word again. At least this one isn't destroyed.' He looked around as he landed on small glade inside of the forest. "It sure is peaceful here." He stretched himself and then he took his Double-Down-ing Dowsing-rods (TM) and activated them. At first, they were moving like usually, but then a puff of smoke rose from them and a weird sound was heard. "Don't tell me!?"

He tried to make it work by slightly hitting it, but they were dead. "That's the last thing I need!" He sat on a stump and looked at his portable Genesis portal generator. The battery has shown he can use it only once. "This way I can't contact the professor to fix it. I could return and go back here, but who knows how long it would take and if I would be able to return to this exact moment. Professor mentioned the portals are unstable." He sighed. "Villagers mentioned Sonic and since Eggman is here, so must be Tails!" He happy jumped. "He can fix this! He is a mechanical genius after all."

"I wouldn't count on that," said familiar voice.

"Eggman!" Silver shouted as the man walked from the edge of the forest.

"At your service, my friend."

"We are not friends!"

"Really, so what about neighbors? Is that good enough? And what about long-distance relatives? Still not good enough, huh? And what about internet acquaintance?" He looked like he is seriously thinking about it.

Silver looked surprised. "What do you want? Your robots won't scare me!"

Eggman looked bit sad. "Oh come on, it's such nice day. Let's not fight."

"You attacked a village a few minutes ago."

"Oh, that, that's just the part of daily routine. I'm saving bigger robots for Friday evenings." Now was Silver sure this Eggman has few loose screws. "But back to you. I heard you mention something about Tails."

"So what?"

He put arms behind his back. "I don't know where you heard he is a mechanical genius, but it must have been wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"That pipsqueak can't plug the toaster without firemen waiting in front of his house! Village's major forbid him entering the village while holding anything electrical. He is otherwise walking disaster!"

Silver had to admit, it can be possible. After all the Tails from Zilver's word was a normal mechanic, so this one can be really bad with it.

"But it's your lucky day!" Eggman interrupted his thoughts. "I just happen to be the man for the job." He walked closer to Silver, putting in his palm a business card.

"Eggman Industries?"

"Yes, I can make anything from crackers to mechanical toys, killer robots, and doom day's devices. Order more than three pieces and packing and postage is free of the charge," said doctor jolly. Silver had no answer. "So let's go," he picked Silver under his armpit and soon they arrived at the door of his evil lair. "Do you like it? I designed it myself."

The building was tall and located at magma field. Interior was full of gray color and Eggman took him in his resting area connected to his lab. He finally released Silver and he sat on a gray couch. He looked around to see tall lamp next to it in a corner, one shelf built in a wall, coffee table in front of the sofa and two small robots. One was yellow and had a square shape while the other one was red with cubic shape.

"How was the destruction?" asked the yellow robot named Cubot.

"Silence, fool," doctor barked at him. "Don't mind him, his CPU is one big mess since Tails looked at him," explained Eggman to Silver while red robot looked like he is frowning. "I'm such a doofus, I forgot to ask your name." He bent a bit in a gallant manner, "My name is doctor Eggman, but call me just doctor Eggman."

"I'm Silver the hedgehog," they shook hands.

"Silver? That's so nice name. It's really fitting this place. So with what tech you have a problem, my friend?"

Silver was still unsure if he can trust him, but he probably had no other choice. "It's this Double-Down-ing Dowsing-rods (TM)." He called it from his glove.

"(TM)?" Eggman picked it.

"Yeah, it's..."

"Brilliant! It's brilliant! Using (TM) makes it more… official! Better! Only true genius can come up with such awesome naming!" Silver only slightly smiled. He didn't doubt about professor Schlemmer's intelligence, it's just his personality. "So what's this device good for?" He held both pieces in his hands.

"They are searching devices for Bits; solid A.I."

"Solid A.I.? Tell me more!" he sat next to hedgehog.

"Bits are three holographic hedgehogs entirely made of computer data. They had this… strange accident and got lost. So far I have found two of them, but the last one is somewhere here."

"Fascinating. A computer program that can exist in a real world without any hardware. No worries my furry friend, doctor Eggman is on the case!" He stood up and took the device to his lab.

"Sandwich?" asked Orbot, offering Silver a tray with a plate.

"Thank you," he picked it.

"He sure is a good guy," commented it Cubot. "Dr. Eggman never say thank you. He is such meanie."

"Don't say that. He is our inventor after all," corrected him Orbot.

"So is he mean inventor?"

"No, he is just our inventor," corrected him once more Orbot. The yellow robot looked at his partner rather sad.

* * *

[After some time]

"Here it is. Good as new!" Eggman gave Silver his gadget back.

"Thank you, I guess you are not so bad after all."

"It's nice to meet understanding hedgehog once in a while," Eggman adjusted his mustache. "Have a nice trip."

Silver headed to find the last blue A.I. hedgehog.

"But doctor Eggman, helping someone in their needs is not very evil, isn't it?" noted Orbot.

"Of course not, you fool! I did it to keep him away!" He headed to further corner of his lab. "I have a master plan."

"The power on your wrist..." sang Cubot, getting an annoyed look from his companion. Eggman ignored him. He walked toward the opposite end of the lab, he pressed some buttons on the touch panel and floor near him opened and a tube containing robot emerged from the hole.

"Behold my newest invention! Heavy Metal Sonic!"

The robot was smaller than Sonic, had star-like quills with yellow tips, upper parts of limbs looked more robust and his color scheme was more black. "Can you see my genius? The perfect aerodynamics? The art of states weaponry hidden in his body? It can fly from 0 to-"

"Isn't it the robot that crash landed in your breakfast three days ago?" asked Cubot.

Eggman's mustache went down. The robot was right. "Oh, can it! I perfected him!"

"By faxing?" added Orbot, crossing his arms.

"I used evil fax! Enough! Get ready! This day we will destroy that annoying pin cushion!" He clicked his wrist device and the new robot activated. He stepped down off the pedestal and knelt before the doctor. Eggman evilly laughed.

* * *

[Tail's house]

"Hey, get back here!" young two tailed fox shouted at a small robot, that was running away from him knocking everything in its path. "Not my darlings!" he shouted as the robot hit the table so hard it knocked down two hammers. He caught them in the last moment. "My poor babies! Are you alright?" he asked the hammers. "Hey!" he shouted at the robot, that was now sitting under the roof on a beam. "Get down here, now!"

"What's up, Tails?" asked him his best buddy Sonic that just arrived.

"Hi, Sonic, it's just this buddy robot. A week ago it started to malfunction all of sudden and it won't stop no matter how many times I check the code." He put the hammers at their place. "And now it learned to run from me and climbed up there." He pointed at the robot that was now slightly kicking with its legs and made happy sounding noise.

"I'll get it," blue hedgehog smirked and in a flash, he was next to him with the robot in his hand. The robot tried to free itself.

"Bad robot," called it Tails and took it.

"What's it saying?"

The robot was making two beeping sounds.

"I have decoded it as a binary code, let's see." He put the robot on the table, where he stayed despite its previous escapes. "Hmm," young fox took the yellow tablet with two antennas and read the analysis. "It said – Bummer and BBL."

"BBL? Some kind of barbeque or something?"

"Don't know. Most of it doesn't make sense. And I didn't even program any function like that." He put the tablet back. "It's sure is mysterious."

"Don't worry, you will get it."

Suddenly their communicator beeped. "Sonic, Dr. Eggman is attacking the village," reported Amy.

"I'm on it!" responded Sonic. "The silver jerk-hog won't outrun me this time!" He rushed to the village with his buddy right behind him. The small robot was looking at them before it jumped down and followed them.


End file.
